OUTDOOR    PASTIMES    OF    AN 
AMERICAN    HUNTER 


BOOKS   BY  THEODORE   ROOSEVELT 

PUBLISHED  BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

OUTDOOR  PASTIMES  OF  AW  AMERICAN  HUNTER. 

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OUTDOOR  PASTIMES 

OF  AN 

MERICAN    HUNTER 


BY 

THEODORE    ROOSEVELT 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW   AND    ENLARGED    EDITION 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S     SONS 
1908 


\ 


COPYRIGHT,    1893,    1895,    1897,   1904,   BY 

FOREST  AND  STREAM   PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1902,    BY   THE 

MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,    1905,    1907,    1908,    BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


All  rights  reserved 


INTRODUCTION   TO    SECOND    EDITION 

Chapters  XII  and  XIII  relate  to  experiences  that  occurred 
since  the  first  edition  of  this  volume  was  published.  The 
photographs  in  Chapter  XII  were  taken  by  Dr.  Alexander 
Lambert;  those  in  Chapter  XIII  by  Mrs.  Herbert  Wadsworth 
and  Mr.  Clinedinst. 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

THE  WHITE  HOUSE,  January  I,  1908. 


TO 
JOHN    BURROUGHS 

DEAR  OOM  JOHN  : — Every  lover  of  outdoor  life  must  feel 
a  sense  of  affectionate  obligation  to  you.  Your  writings  appeal 
to  all  who  care  for  the  life  of  the  woods  and  the  fields,  whether 
their  tastes  keep  them  in  the  homely,  pleasant  farm  country  or 
lead  them  into  the  wilderness.  It  is  a  good  thing  for  our  peo- 
ple that  you  should  have  lived ;  and  surely  no  man  can  wish 
to  have  more  said  of  him. 

I  wish  to  express  my  hearty  appreciation  of  your  warfare 
against  the  sham  nature- writers — those  whom  you  have  called 
"  the  yellow  journalists  of  the  woods."  From  the  days  of  JEsop 
to  the  days  of  Reinecke  Fuchs,  and  from  the  days  of  Reinecke 
Fuchs  to  the  present  time,  there  has  been  a  distinct  and  attrac- 
tive place  in  literature  for  those  who  write  avowed  fiction  in 
which  the  heroes  are  animals  with  human  or  semi-human  attri- 
butes. This  fiction  serves  a  useful  purpose  in  many  ways,  even 
in  the  way  of  encouraging  people  to  take  the  right  view  of  out- 
door life  and  outdoor  creatures ;  but  it  is  unpardonable  for  any 
observer  of  nature  to  write  fiction  and  then  publish  it  as  truth, 
and  he  who  exposes  and  wars  against  such  action  is  entitled  to 
respect  and  support.  You  in  your  own  person  have  illustrated 
what  can  be  done  by  the  lover  of  nature  who  has  trained  him- 
self to  keen  observation,  who  describes  accurately  what  is  thus 
observed,  and  who,  finally,  possesses  the  additional  gift  of  writ- 
ing with  charm  and  interest. 

You  were  with  me  on  one  of  the  trips  described  in  this 
volume,  and  I  trust  that  to  look  over  it  will  recall  the  pleasant 
days  we  spent  together. 

Your  friend, 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT. 

THE  WHITE  HOUSE,  October  2,   1905. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS i 

CHAPTER    II 
A  COLORADO  BEAR  HUNT 68 

CHAPTER    III 

WOLF-COURSING      .       .  IOO 

CHAPTER   IV 

HUNTING  IN  THE  CATTLE  COUNTRY;  THE  PRONGBUCK  133 

CHAPTER   V 
A  SHOT  AT  A  MOUNTAIN  SHEEP 181 

CHAPTER   VI 
THE  WHITETAIL  DEER 193 

CHAPTER   VII 

THE  MULE-DEER  OR  ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  BLACKTAIL  .  224 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   VIII 


PAGE 


THE  WAPITI  OR  ROUND-HORNED  ELK 256 

CHAPTER    IX 

WILDERNESS  RESERVES;  THE  YELLOWSTONE  PARK  .     .  287 

CHAPTER   X 
BOOKS  ON  BIG  GAME 318 

CHAPTER    XI 
AT  HOME 339 

CHAPTER    XII 

IN  THE  LOUISIANA  CANEBRAKES 360 

CHAPTER    XIII 

SMALL  COUNTRY  NEIGHBORS 391 


*>£*  Seven  of  these  Chapters  have  been  recently  written  ;  the  others  have 
been  revised  and  added  to  since  they  originally  appeared  in  the  publications  of 
the  Boone  and  Crockett  Club  and  in  Mr.  Caspar  Whitney's  "Deer  Family." 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT Frontispiece 

Photogravure  from  a  photograph.  FACING 

PAGE 

GOFF  AND  THE  PACK 5 

TURK  AND  A  BOBCAT  IN  TOP  OF  A  PINYON  ......  12 

BOBCAT  IN  PINYON 16 

STARTING  FOR  A  HUNT 33 

THE  FIRST  COUGAR  KILLED 37 

AFTER  THE  FIGHT 44 

COUGAR  IN  A  TREE 50 

BARKING  TREED 63 

STARTING  FOR  CAMP 68 

AT  DINNER 74 

THE  PACK  STRIKES  THE  FRESH  BEAR  TRAIL 77 

DEATH  OF  THE  BIG  BEAR 83 

STEWART  AND  THE  BOBCAT 86 

THE  PACK  BAYING  THE  BEAR 88 

A  DOILY  BEAR 91 

THE  BIG  BEAR 94 

STARTING  TOWARD  THE  WOLF  GROUNDS 101 

GREYHOUNDS  RESTING  AFTER  A  RUN 104 

xiii 


xiv  ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


AT  THE  TAIL  OF  THE  CHUCK  WAGON 108 

THE  BIG  D  Cow  PONY 112 

ABERNETHY  AND  COYOTE 116 

ABERNETHY  RETURNS  FROM  THE  HUNT 125 

BONY  MOORE  AND  THE  COYOTE 129 

ON  THE  LITTLE  MISSOURI 138 

CAMPING  ON  THE  ANTELOPE  GROUNDS 156 

RANCH  WAGON  RETURNING  FROM  HUNT 182 

ELKHORN  RANCH 216 

THE  RANCH   HOUSE 238 

THE  RANCH  VERANDA 248 

THE  PACK  TRAIN 264 

TROPHIES  OF  A  SUCCESSFUL  HUNT 277 

TROPHIES  IN  THE  WHITE  HOUSE  DINING-ROOM 284 

ANTELOPE  IN  THE  STREETS  OF  GARDINER 294 

BLACKTAIL  DEER  ON  PARADE  GROUND 299 

ELK  IN  SNOW 304 

OOM  JOHN 309 

BEARS  AND  TOURISTS 311 

GRIZZLY  BEAR  AND  COOK 314 

THE  BEAR  AND  THE  CHAMBERMAID 316 

THE  NORTH  ROOM  AT  SAGAMORE  HILL 324 

RENOWN 341 

His  FIRST  BUCK 343 

ALGONQUIN  AND  SKIP 344 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xv 


FACING 
PAGE 


PETER  RABBIT 346 

THE  GUINEA  PIGS 348 

FAMILY  FRIENDS 350 

JOSIAH 354 

BLEISTEIN  JUMPING 356 

THE  BEAR  HUNTERS 366 

LISTENING  FOR  THE  PACK 376 

AUDREY  TAKES  THE  BARS 394 

THE  STONE  WALL 402 

ROSWELL  BEHAVES  LIKE  A  GENTLEMAN 414 

ROSWELL  FIGHTS  FOR  His  HEAD 418 


*.£*  The  cuts  for  Chapter  I  are  from  photographs  taken  by  Philip  B. 
Stewart ;  those  in  Chapter  II,  from  photographs  taken  by  Dr.  Alexander 
Lambert  and  Philip  B.  Stewart ;  those  in  Chapter  III,  from  photographs 
taken  by  Dr.  Lambert  and  Sloan  Simpson  ;  those  in  Chapter  IX  were  ob- 
tained through  Major  Pitcher  ;  most  of  the  others  are  from  photographs  taken 
by  me  or  by  members  of  my  family. 


OUTDOOR   PASTIMES  OF 
AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

CHAPTER   I 

•          «*>    !        *  •  •  "  . 

WITH   THE  COUGAR   HOUNDS 

IN  January,  1901,  I  started  on  a  five  weeks'  cougar 
hunt  from  Meeker  in  Northwest  Colorado.  My  com- 
panions were  Mr.  Philip  B.  Stewart  and  Dr.  Gerald 
Webb,  of  Colorado  Springs;  Stewart  was  the  captain  of 
the  victorious  Yale  nine  of  '86.  We  reached  Meeker  on 
January  nth,  after  a  forty  mile  drive  from  the  railroad, 
through  the  bitter  winter  weather;  it  was  eighteen  degrees 
below  zero  when  we  started.  At  Meeker  we  met  John 
B.  GofT,  the  hunter,  and  left  town  the  next  morning  on 
horseback  for  his  ranch,  our  hunting  beginning  that  same 
afternoon,  when  after  a  brisk  run  our  dogs  treed  a  bobcat. 
After  la  fortnight  Stewart  and  Webb  returned,  GofT  and 
I  staying  out  three  weeks  longer.  We  did  not  have  to 
camp  out,  thanks  to  the  warm-hearted  hospitality  of  the 
proprietor  and  manager  of  the  Keystone  Ranch,  and  of 
the  Mathes  Brothers  and  Judge  Foreman,  both  of  whose 
ranches  I  also  visited.  The  five  weeks  were  spent  hunt- 
ing north  of  the  White  River,  most  of  the  time  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Coyote  Basin  and  Colorow  Mountain. 
In  midwinter,  hunting  on  horseback  in  the  Rockies  is 


2  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

apt  to  be  cold  work,  but  we  were  too  warmly  clad  to 
mind  the  weather.  We  wore  heavy  flannels,  jackets  lined 
with  sheepskin,  caps  which  drew  down  entirely  over  our 
ears,  and  on  our  feet  heavy  ordinary  socks,  german  socks, 
and  overshoes.  Galloping  through  the  brush  and  among 
the  spikes  of  the  dead  cedars,  meant  that  now  and  then 
one  got  snagged;  I  found  tough  overalls  better  than 
trousers;  and  most  of  the  time  I  did  not  need  the  jacket, 
wearing  my  old  buckskin  shirt,  which  is  to  my  mind  a 
particularly  useful  and  comfortable  garment. 

It  is  a  high,  dry  country,  where  the  winters  are  usually 
very  cold,  but  the  snow  not  under  ordinary  circumstances 
very  deep.  It  is  wild  and  broken  in  character,  the  hills 
and  low  mountains  rising  in  sheer  slopes,  broken  by  cliffs 
and  riven  by  deeply  cut  and  gloomy  gorges  and  ravines. 
The  sage-brush  grows  everywhere  upon  the  flats  and 
hillsides.  Large  open  groves  of  pinyon  and  cedar  are 
scattered  over  the  peaks,  ridges,  and  table-lands.  Tall 
spruces  cluster  in  the  cold  ravines.  Cottonwoods  grow 
along  the  stream  courses,  and  there  are  occasional  patches 
of  scrub-oak  and  quaking  asp.  The  entire  country  is 
taken  up  with  cattle  ranges  wherever  it  is  possible  to  get 
a  sufficient  water-supply,  natural  or  artificial.  Some 
thirty  miles  to  the  east  and  north  the  mountains  rise 
higher,  the  evergreen  forest  becomes  continuous,  the  snow 
lies  deep  all  through  the  winter,  and  such  Northern 
animals  as  the  wolverene,  lucivee,  and  snow-shoe  rabbit 
are  found.  This  high  country  is  the  summer  home  of  the 
Colorado  elk,  now  woefully  diminished  in  numbers,  and 
of  the  Colorado  blacktail  deer,  which  are  still  very  plenti- 


WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS     3 

ful,  but  which,  unless  better  protected,  will  follow  the  elk 
in  the  next  few  decades.  I  am  happy  to  say  that  there  are 
now  signs  to  show  that  the  State  is  waking  up  to  the  need 
of  protecting  both  elk  and  deer;  the  few  remaining 
mountain  sheep  in  Colorado  are  so  successfully  pro- 
tected that  they  are  said  to  be  increasing  in  numbers.  In 
winter  both  elk  and  deer  come  down  to  the  lower  country, 
through  a  part  of  which  I  made  my  hunting  trip.  We 
did  not  come  across  any  elk,  but  I  have  never,  even  in 
the  old  days,  seen  blacktail  more  abundant  than  they  were 
in  this  region.  The  bucks  had  not  lost  their  antlers,  and 
were  generally,  but  not  always,  found  in  small  troops 
by  themselves;  the  does,  yearlings,  and  fawns — now  al- 
most yearlings  themselves — went  in  bands.  They  seemed 
tame,  and  we  often  passed  close  to  them  before  they  took 
alarm.  Of  course  at  that  season  it  was  against  the  law 
to  kill  them ;  and  even  had  this  not  been  so  none  of  our 
party  would  have  dreamed  of  molesting  them. 

Flocks  of  Alaskan  long-spurs  and  of  rosy  finches 
flitted  around  the  ranch  buildings ;  but  at  that  season  there 
was  not  very  much  small  bird  life. 

The  midwinter  mountain  landscape  was  very  beauti- 
ful, whether  under  the  brilliant  blue  sky  of  the  day,  or 
the  starlight  or  glorious  moonlight  of  the  night,  or  when 
under  the  dying  sun  the  snowy  peaks,  and  the  light  clouds 
above,  kindled  into  flame,  and  sank  again  to  gold  and 
amber  and  sombre  purple.  After  the  snow-storms  the 
trees,  almost  hidden  beneath  the  light,  feathery  masses, 
gave  a  new  and  strange  look  to  the  mountains,  as  if 
they  were  giant  masses  of  frosted  silver.  Even  the 


4  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

storms  had  a  beauty  of  their  own.  The  keen,  cold  air, 
the  wonderful  scenery,  and  the  interest  and  excitement  of 
the  sport,  made  our  veins  thrill  and  beat  with  buoyant 
life. 

In  cougar  hunting  the  success  of  the  hunter  depends 
absolutely  upon  his  hounds.  As  hounds  that  are  not  per- 
fectly trained  are  worse  than  useless,  this  means  that 
success  depends  absolutely  upon  the  man  who  trains  and 
hunts  the  hounds.  GofT  was  one  of  the  best  hunters  with 
whom  I  have  ever  been  out,  and  he  had  trained  his  pack 
to  a  point  of  perfection  for  its  special  work  which  I  have 
never  known  another  such  pack  to  reach.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  one  new  hound,  which  he  had  just  purchased, 
and  of  a  puppy,  which  was  being  trained,  not  one  of  the 
pack  would  look  at  a  deer  even  when  they  were  all  as 
keen  as  mustard,  were  not  on  a  trail,  and  when  the  deer 
got  up  but  fifty  yards  or  so  from  them.  By  the  end  of 
the  hunt  both  the  new  hound  and  the  puppy  were  entirely 
trustworthy;  of  course,  GofT  can  only  keep  up  his  pack 
by  continually  including  new  or  young  dogs  with  the 
veterans.  As  cougar  are/  only  plentiful  where  deer  are 
infinitely  more  plentiful,  the  first  requisite  for  a  good 
cougar  hound  is  that  it  shall  leave  its  natural  prey,  the 
deer,  entirely  alone.  GofT's  pack  ran  only  bear,  cougar, 
and  bobcat.  Under  no  circumstances  were  they  ever  per- 
mitted to  follow  elk,  deer,  antelope  or,  of  course,  rabbit. 
Nor  were  they  allowed  to  follow  a  wolf  unless  it  was 
wounded;  for  in  such  a  rough  country  they  would  at  once 
run  out  of  sight  and  hearing,  and  moreover  if  they  did 
overtake  the  wolf  they  would  be  so  scattered  as  to  come 


GOFF   AND   THE    PACK 
From  a  photograph  by  Philip  B.  Stewart 


WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS 


up  singly  and  probably  be  overcome  one  after  another. 
Being  bold  dogs  they  were  always  especially  eager  after 
wolf  and  coyote,  and  when  they  came  across  the  trail  of 
either,  though  they  would  not  follow  it,  they  would 
usually  challenge  loudly.  If  the  circumstances  were  such 
that  they  could  overtake  the  wolf  in  a  body,  it  could  make 
no  effective  fight  against  them,  no  matter  how  large  and 
powerful.  On  the  one  or  two  occasions  when  this  had 
occurred,  the  pack  had  throttled  "  Isegrim  "  without  get- 
ting a  scratch. 

As  the  dogs  did  all  the  work,  we  naturally  became 
extremely  interested  in  them,  and  rapidly  grew  to  know 
the  voice,  peculiarities,  and  special  abilities  of  each. 
There  were  eight  hounds  and  four  fighting  dogs.  The 
hounds  were  of  the  ordinary  Eastern  type,  used  from  the 
Adirondacks  to  the  Mississippi  and  the  Gulf  in  the  chase 
of  deer  and  fox.  Six  of  them  were  black  and  tan  and 
two  were  mottled.  They  differed  widely  in  size  and 
voice.  The  biggest,  and,  on  the  whole,  the  most  useful, 
was  Jim,  a  very  fast,  powerful,  and  true  dog  with  a  great 
voice.  When  the  animal  was  treed  or  bayed,  Jim  was 
especially  useful  because  he  never  stopped  barking;  and 
we  could  only  find  the  hounds,  when  at  bay,  by  listening 
for  the  sound  of  their  voices.  Among  the  cliffs  and  preci- 
pices the  pack  usually  ran  out  of  sight  and  hearing  if 
the  chase  lasted  any  length  of  time.  Their  business  was 
to  bring  the  quarry  to  bay,  or  put  it  up  a  tree,  and  then 
to  stay  with  it  and  make  a  noise  until  the  hunters  came 
up.  During  this  hunt  there  were  two  or  three  occasions 
when  they  had  a  cougar  up  a  tree  for  at  least  three  hours 


6  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

before  we  arrived,  and  on  several  occasions  Goff  had 
known  them  to  keep  a  cougar  up  a  tree  overnight  and 
to  be  still  barking  around  the  tree  when  the  hunters  at 
last  found  them  the  following  morning.  Jim  always 
did  his  share  of  the  killing,  being  a  formidable  fighter, 
though  too  wary  to  take  hold  until  one  of  the  professional 
fighting  dogs  had  seized.  He  was  a  great  bully  with  the 
other  dogs,  robbing  them  of  their  food,  and  yielding  only 
to  Turk.  He  possessed  great  endurance,  and  very  stout 
feet. 

On  the  whole  the  most  useful  dog  next  to  Jim  was 
old  Boxer.  Age  had  made  Boxer  slow,  and  in  addition 
to  this,  the  first  cougar  we  tackled  bit  him  through  one 
hind  leg,  so  that  for  the  remainder  of  the  trip  he  went 
on  three  legs,  or,  as  Goff  put  it,  "  packed  one  leg  " ;  but 
this  seemed  not  to  interfere  with  his  appetite,  his  en- 
durance, or  his  desire  for  the  chase.  Of  all  the  dogs  he 
was  the  best  to  puzzle  out  a  cold  trail  on  a  bare  hill- 
side, or  in  any  difficult  place.  He  hardly  paid  any  heed 
to  the  others,  always  insisting  upon  working  out  the  trail 
for  himself,  and  he  never  gave  up.  Of  course,  the  dogs 
were  much  more  apt  to  come  upon  the  cold  than  upon 
the  fresh  trail  of  a  cougar,  and  it  was  often  necessary 
for  them  to  spend  several  hours  in  working  out  a  track 
which  was  at  least  two  days  old.  Both  Boxer  and  Jim 
had  enormous  appetites.  Boxer  was  a  small  dog  and 
Jim  a  very  large  one,  and  as  the  relations  of  the  pack 
among  themselves  were  those  of  brutal  wild-beast  selfish- 
ness, Boxer  had  to  eat  very  quickly  if  he  expected  to  get 
anything  when  Jim  was  around.  He  never  ventured  to 


WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS     7 

fight  Jim,  but  in  deep-toned  voice  appealed  to  heaven 
against  the  unrighteousness  with  which  he  was  treated; 
and  time  and  again  such  appeal  caused  me  to  sally  out 
and  rescue  his  dinner  from  Jim's  highway  robbery. 
Once,  when  Boxer  was  given  a  biscuit,  which  he  tried 
to  bolt  whole,  Jim  simply  took  his  entire  head  in  his 
jaws,  and  convinced  him  that  he  had  his  choice  of  sur- 
rendering the  biscuit,  or  sharing  its  passage  down  Jim's 
capacious  throat.  Boxer  promptly  gave  up  the  biscuit, 
then  lay  on  his  back  and  wailed  a  protest  to  fate — his 
voice  being  deep  rather  than  loud,  so  that  on  the  trail, 
when  heard  at  a  distance,  it  sounded  a  little  as  if  he 
was  croaking.  After  killing  a  cougar  we  usually  cut  up 
the  carcass  and  fed  it  to  the  dogs,  if  we  did  not  expect 
another  chase  that  day.  They  devoured  it  eagerly,  Boxer, 
after  his  meal,  always  looking  as  if  he  had  swallowed 
a  mattress. 

Next  in  size  to  Jim  was  Tree'em.  Tree'em  was  a 
good  dog,  but  I  never  considered  him  remarkable  until 
his  feat  on  the  last  day  of  our  hunt,  to  be  afterward 
related.  He  was  not  a  very  noisy  dog,  and  when  "  bark- 
ing treed  "  he  had  a  meditative  way  of  giving  single 
barks  separated  by  intervals  of  several  seconds,  all  the 
time  gazing  stolidly  up  at  the  big,  sinister  cat  which  he 
was  baying.  Early  in  the  hunt,  in  the  course  of  a  fight 
with  one  of  the  cougars,  he  received  some  injury  to  his 
tail,  which  made  it  hang  down  like  a  piece  of  old  rope. 
Apparently  it  hurt  him  a  good  deal  and  we  let  him  rest 
for  a  fortnight.  This  put  him  in  great  spirits  and  made 
him  fat  and  strong,  but  only  enabled  him  to  recover 


8  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

power  over  the  root  of  the  tail,  while  the  tip  hung  down 
as  before;  it  looked  like  a  curved  pump-handle  when  he 
tried  to  carry  it  erect. 

Lil  and  Nel  were  two  very  stanch  and  fast  bitches, 
the  only  two  dogs  that  could  keep  up  to  Jim  in  a  quick 
burst.  They  had  shrill  voices.  Their  only  failing  was  a 
tendency  to  let  the  other  members  of  the  pack  cow  them  so 
that  they  did  not  get  their  full  share  of  the  food.  It 
was  not  a  pack  in  which  a  slow  or  timid  dog  had  much 
chance  for  existence.  They  would  all  unite  in  the  chase 
and  the  fierce  struggle  which  usually  closed  it;  but  the 
instant  the  quarry  was  killed  each  dog  resumed  his  nor- 
mal attitude  of  greedy  anger  or  greedy  fear  toward  the 
others. 

Another  bitch  rejoiced  in  the  not  very  appropriate 
name  of  Pete.  She  was  a  most  ardent  huntress.  In  the 
middle  of  our  trip  she  gave  birth  to  a  litter  of  puppies, 
but  before  they  were  two  weeks  old  she  would  slip  away 
after  us  and  join  with  the  utmost  ardor  in  the  hunting 
and  fighting.  Her  brother  Jimmie,  although  of  the  same 
age  (both  were  young),  was  not  nearly  as  far  advanced. 
He  would  run  well  on  a  fresh  trail,  but  a  cold  trail  or  a 
long  check  always  discouraged  him  and  made  him  come 
back  to  GofT.  He  was  rapidly  learning;  a  single  beating 
taught  him  to  let  deer  alone.  The  remaining  hound, 
Bruno,  had  just  been  added  to  the  pack.  He  showed  ten- 
dencies both  to  muteness  and  babbling,  and  at  times,  if  he 
thought  himself  unobserved,  could  not  resist  making  a 
sprint  after  a  deer;  but  he  occasionally  rendered  good 
service.  If  Jim  or  Boxer  gave  tongue  every  member  of 


WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS     9 

the  pack  ran  to  the  sound;  but  not  a  dog  paid  any  heed 
to  Jimmie  or  Bruno.  Yet  both  ultimately  became  first- 
class  hounds. 

The  fighting  dogs  always  trotted  at  the  heels  of  the 
horses,  which  had  become  entirely  accustomed  to  them, 
and  made  no  objection  when  they  literally  rubbed  against 
their  heels.  The  fighters  never  left  us  until  we  came  to 
where  we  could  hear  the  hounds  "  barking  treed,"  or 
with  their  quarry  at  bay.  Then  they  tore  in  a  straight 
line  to  the  sound.  They  were  the  ones  who  were  expected 
to  do  the  seizing  and  take  the  punishment,  though  the 
minute  they  actually  had  hold  of  the  cougar,  the  hounds 
all  piled  on  too,  and  did  their  share  of  the  killing;  but 
the  seizers  fought  the  head  while  the  hounds  generally 
took  hold  behind.  All  of  them,  fighters  and  hounds  alike, 
were  exceedingly  good-natured  and  affectionate  with 
their  human  friends,  though  short-tempered  to  a  degree 
with  one  another.  The  best  of  the  fighters  was  old  Turk, 
who  was  by  blood  half  hound  and  half  "  Siberian  blood- 
hound." Both  his  father  and  his  mother  were  half-breeds 
of  the  same  strains,  and  both  were  famous  fighters. 
Once,  when  GofT  had  wounded  an  enormous  gray  wolf 
in  the  hind  leg,  the  father  had  overtaken  it  and  fought 
it  to  a  standstill.  The  two  dogs  together  were  an  over- 
match for  any  wolf.  Turk  had  had  a  sister  who  was  as 
good  as  he  was;  but  she  had  been  killed  the  year  before 
by  a  cougar  which  bit  her  through  the  skull;  accidents 
being,  of  course,  frequent  in  the  pack,  for  a  big  cougar 
is  an  even  more  formidable  opponent  to  dogs  than  a 
wolf.  Turk's  head  and  body  were  seamed  with  scars. 


io  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

He  had  lost  his  lower  fangs,  but  he  was  still  a  most  for- 
midable dog.  While  we  were  at  the  Keystone  Ranch 
a  big  steer  which  had  been  driven  in,  got  on  the  fight, 
and  the  foreman,  William  Wilson,  took  Turk  out  to  aid 
him.  At  first  Turk  did  not  grasp  what  was  expected  of 
him,  because  all  the  dogs  were  trained  never  to  touch 
anything  domestic — at  the  different  ranches  where  we 
stopped  the  cats  and  kittens  wandered  about,  perfectly 
safe,  in  the  midst  of  this  hard-biting  crew  of  bear  and 
cougar  fighters.  But  when  Turk  at  last  realized  that 
he  was  expected  to  seize  the  steer,  he  did  the  business 
with  speed  and  thoroughness;  he  not  only  threw  the  steer, 
but  would  have  killed  it  then  and  there  had  he  not  been, 
with  much  difficulty,  taken  away.  Three  dogs  like  Turk, 
in  their  prime  and  with  their  teeth  intact,  could,  I  be- 
lieve, kill  an  ordinary  female  cougar,  and  could  hold 
even  a  big  male  so  as  to  allow  it  to  be  killed  with  the 
knife. 

Next  to  Turk  were  two  half-breeds  between  bull  and 
shepherd,  named  Tony  and  Baldy.  They  were  exceed- 
ingly game,  knowing-looking  little  dogs,  with  a  certain 
alert  swagger  that  reminded  one  of  the  walk  of  some 
light-weight  prize-fighters.  In  fights  with  cougars, 
bears,  and  lynx,  they  too  had  been  badly  mauled  and  had 
lost  a  good  many  of  their  teeth.  Neither  of  the  gallant 
little  fellows  survived  the  trip.  Their  place  was  taken 
by  a  white  bulldog  bitch,  Queen,  which  we  picked  up 
at  the  Keystone  Ranch;  a  very  affectionate  and  good- 
humored  dog,  but,  when  her  blood  was  aroused,  a  daunt- 
less though  rather  stupid  fighter.  Unfortunately  she  did 


WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS    n 

not  seize  by  the  head,  taking  hold  of  any  part  that  was 
nearest. 

The  pack  had  many  interesting  peculiarities,  but  none 
more  so  than  the  fact  that  four  of  them  climbed  trees. 
Only  one  of  the  hounds,  little  Jimmie,  ever  tried  the  feat; 
but  of  the  fighters,  not  only  Tony  and  Baldy  but  big 
Turk  climbed  every  tree  that  gave  them  any  chance. 
The  pinyons  and  cedars  were  low,  multi-forked,  and 
usually  sent  off  branches  from  near  the  ground.  In  con- 
sequence the  dogs  could,  by  industrious  effort,  work  their 
way  almost  to  the  top.  The  photograph  of  Turk  and  the 
bobcat  in  the  pinyon  (facing  p.  12)  shows  them  at  an  alti- 
tude of  about  thirty  feet  above  the  ground.  Now  and 
then  a  dog  would  lose  his  footing  and  come  down  with  a 
whack  which  sounded  as  if  he  must  be  disabled,  but  after 
a  growl  and  a  shake  he  would  start  up  the  tree  again. 
They  could  not  fight  well  while  in  a  tree,  and  were  often 
scratched  or  knocked  to  the  ground  by  a  cougar;  and 
when  the  quarry  was  shot  out  of  its  perch  and  seized 
by  the  expectant  throng  below,  the  dogs  in  the  tree,  yelp- 
ing with  eager  excitement,  dived  headlong  down  through 
the  branches,  regardless  of  consequences. 

The  horses  were  stout,  hardy,  surefooted  beasts,  not 
very  fast,  but  able  to  climb  like  goats,  and  to  endure  an 
immense  amount  of  work.  Goff  and  I  each  used  two  for 
the  trip. 

The  bear  were  all  holed  up  for  the  winter,  and  so 
our  game  was  limited  to  cougars  and  bobcats.  In  the 
books  the  bobcat  is  always  called  a  lynx,  which  it  of 
course  is;  but  whenever  a  hunter  or  trapper  speaks  of  a 


12  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

lynx  (which  he  usually  calls  "  link,"  feeling  dimly  that 
the  other  pronunciation  is  a  plural),  he  means  a  lucivee. 
Bobcat  is  a  good  distinctive  name,  and  it  is  one  which 
I  think  the  book  people  might  with  advantage  adopt; 
for  wild-cat,  which  is  the  name  given  to  the  small  lynx 
in  the  East,  is  already  pre-empted  by  the  true  wild-cat 
of  Europe.  Like  all  people  of  European  descent  who 
have  gone  into  strange  lands,  we  Americans  have  christ- 
ened our  wild  beasts  with  a  fine  disregard  for  their 
specific  and  generic  relations.  We  called  the  bison 
"  buffalo  "  as  long  as  it  existed,  and  we  still  call  the  big 
stag  an  "  elk,"  instead  of  using  for  it  the  excellent  term 
wapiti;  on  the  other  hand,  to  the  true  elk  and  the  rein- 
deer we  gave  the  new  names  moose  and  caribou — ex- 
cellent names,  too,  by  the  way.  The  prong  buck  is  always 
called  antelope,  though  it  is  not  an  antelope  at  all;  and 
the  white  goat  is  not  a  goat;  while  the  distinctive  name  of 
"  bighorn  "  is  rarely  used  for  the  mountain  sheep.  In 
most  cases,  however,  it  is  mere  pedantry  to  try  to  upset 
popular  custom  in  such  matters;  and  where,  as  with  the 
bobcat,  a  perfectly  good  name  is  taken,  it  would  be  better 
for  scientific  men  to  adopt  it.  I  may  add  that  in  this 
particular  of  nomenclature  we  are  no  worse  sinners  than 
other  people.  The  English  in  Ceylon,  the  English  and 
Dutch  in  South  Africa,  and  the  Spanish  in  South  Amer- 
ica, have  all  shown  the  same  genius  for  misnaming  beasts 
and  birds. 

Bobcats  were  very  numerous  where  we  were  hunting. 
They  fed  chiefly  upon  the  rabbits,  which  fairly  swarmed; 
mostly  cotton-tails,  but  a  few  jacks.  Contrary  to  the 


TURK   AND   A   BOBCAT   IN   TOP   OF   A   PINYON 
From  a  photograph  by  Philip  B.  Stewart 


WITH    THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          13 

popular  belief,  the  winter  is  in  many  places  a  time  of 
plenty  for  carnivorous  wild  beasts.  In  this  place,  for 
instance,  the  abundance  of  deer  and  rabbits  made  good 
hunting  for  both  cougar  and  bobcat,  and  all  those  we 
killed  were  as  fat  as  possible,  and  in  consequence  weighed 
more  than  their  inches  promised.  The  bobcats  are  very 
fond  of  prairie  dogs,  and  haunt  the  dog  towns  as  soon 
as  spring  comes  and  the  inhabitants  emerge  from  their 
hibernation.  They  sometimes  pounce  on  higher  game. 
We  came  upon  an  eight  months'  fawn — very  nearly  a 
yearling — which  had  been  killed  by  a  big  male  bobcat; 
and  Judge  Foreman  informed  me  that  near  his  ranch, 
a  few  years  previously,  an  exceptionally  large  bobcat  had 
killed  a  yearling  doe.  Bobcats  will  also  take  lambs  and 
young  pigs,  and  if  the  chance  occurs  will  readily  seize 
their  small  kinsman,  the  house  cat. 

Bobcats  are  very  fond  of  lurking  round  prairie-dog 
towns  as  soon  as  the  prairie  dogs  come  out  in  spring. 
In  this  part  of  Colorado,  by  the  way,  the  prairie  dogs 
were  of  an  entirely  different  species  from  the  common 
kind  of  the  plains  east  of  the  Rockies. 

We  found  that  the  bobcats  sometimes  made  their  lairs 
along  the  rocky  ledges  or  in  holes  in  the  cut  banks,  and 
sometimes  in  thickets,  prowling  about  during  the  night, 
and  now  and  then  even  during  the  day.  We  never  chased 
them  unless  the  dogs  happened  to  run  across  them  by 
accident  when  questing  for  cougar,  or  when  we  were  re- 
turning home  after  a  day  when  we  had  failed  to  find 
cougar.  Usually  the  cat  gave  a  good  run,  occasionally 
throwing  out  the  dogs  by  doubling  .or  jack-knifing.  Two 


i4  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

or  three  times  one  of  them  gave  us  an  hour's  sharp  trot- 
ting, cantering,  and  galloping  through  the  open  cedar 
and  pinyon  groves  on  the  table-lands ;  and  the  runs  some- 
times lasted  for  a  much  longer  period  when  the  dogs  had 
to  go  across  ledges  and  through  deep  ravines. 

On  one  of  our  runs  a  party  of  ravens  fluttered  along 
from  tree  to  tree  beside  us,  making  queer  gurgling  noises 
and  evidently  aware  that  they  might  expect  to  reap  a 
reward  from  our  hunting.  Ravens,  multitudes  of  mag- 
pies, and  golden  and  bald  eagles  were  seen  continually, 
and  all  four  flocked  to  any  carcass  which  was  left  in  the 
open.  The  eagle  and  the  raven  are  true  birds  of  the 
wilderness,  and  in  a  way  their  presence  both  height- 
ened and  relieved  the  iron  desolation  of  the  wintry 
mountains. 

Over  half  the  cats  we  started  escaped,  getting  into 
caves  or  deep  holes  in  washouts.  In  the  other  instances 
they  went  up  trees  and  were  of  course  easily  shot.  Tony 
and  Baldy  would  bring  them  out  of  any  hole  into  which 
they  themselves  could  get.  After  their  loss,  Lil,  who  was 
a  small  hound,  once  went  into  a  hole  in  a  washout  after 
a  cat.  After  awhile  she  stopped  barking,  though  we 
could  still  hear  the  cat  growling.  What  had  happened 
to  her  we  did  not  know.  We  spent  a  couple  of  hours 
calling  to  her  and  trying  to  get  her  to  come  out,  but  she 
neither  came  out  nor  answered,  and,  as  sunset  was  ap- 
proaching and  the  ranch  was  some  miles  off,  we  rode 
back  there,  intending  to  return  with  spades  in  the  morn- 
ing. However,  by  breakfast  we  found  that  Lil  had  come 
back.  We  supposed  that  she  had  got  on  the  other  side 


WITH   THE    COUGAR   HOUNDS          15 

of  the  cat  and  had  been  afraid  or  unable  to  attack  it;  so 
that  as  Collins  the  cow-puncher,  who  was  a  Southerner, 
phrased  it,  "  she  just  naturally  stayed  in  the  hole  "  until 
some  time  during  the  night  the  cat  went  out  and  she  fol- 
lowed. When  once  hunters  and  hounds  have  come  into 
the  land,  it  is  evident  that  the  bobcats  which  take  refuge 
in  caves  have  a  far  better  chance  of  surviving  than  those 
which  make  their  lairs  in  the  open  and  go  up  trees.  But 
trees  are  sure  havens  against  their  wilderness  foes.  Goff 
informed  me  that  he  once  came  in  the  snow  to  a  place 
where  the  tracks  showed  that  some  coyotes  had  put  a 
bobcat  up  a  tree,  and  had  finally  abandoned  the  effort  to 
get  at  it.  Any  good  fighting  dog  will  kill  a  bobcat; 
but  an  untrained  dog,  even  of  large  size,  will  probably 
fail,  as  the  bobcat  makes  good  use  of  both  teeth  and 
claws.  The  cats  we  caught  frequently  left  marks  on  some 
of  the  pack.  We  found  them  very  variable  in  size.  My 
two  largest — both  of  course  males — weighed  respectively 
thirty-one  and  thirty-nine  pounds.  The  latter,  Goff  said, 
was  of  exceptional  size,  and  as  large  as  any  he  had  ever 
killed.  The  full-grown  females  went  down  as  low  as 
eighteen  pounds,  or  even  lower. 

When  the  bobcats  were  in  the  treetops  we  could  get 
up  very  close.  They  looked  like  large  malevolent  pussies. 
I  once  heard  one  of  them  squall  defiance  when  the  dogs 
tried  to  get  it  out  of  a  hole.  Ordinarily  they  confined 
themselves  to  a  low  growling.  Stewart  and  Goff  went  up 
the  trees  with  their  cameras  whenever  we  got  a  bobcat 
in  a  favorable  position,  and  endeavored  to  take  its  photo- 
graph. Sometimes  they  were  very  successful.  Although 


1 6  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

they  were  frequently  within  six  feet  of  a  cat,  and  occa- 
sionally even  poked  it  in  order  to  make  it  change  its  posi- 
tion, I  never  saw  one  make  a  motion  to  jump  on  them. 
Two  or  three  times  on  our  approach  the  cat  jumped  from 
the  tree  almost  into  the  midst  of  the  pack,  but  it  was 
so  quick  that  it  got  off  before  they  could  seize  it.  They 
invariably  put  it  up  another  tree  before  it  had  gone  any 
distance. 

Hunting  the  bobcat  was  only  an  incident.  Our  true 
quarry  was  the  cougar.  I  had  long  been  anxious  to  make 
a  regular  hunt  after  cougar  in  a  country  where  the  beasts 
were  plentiful  and  where  we  could  follow  them  with 
a  good  pack  of  hounds.  Astonishingly  little  of  a  satis- 
factory nature  has  been  left  on  record  about  the  cougar 
by  hunters,  and  in  most  places  the  chances  for  observa- 
tion of  the  big  cats  steadily  grow  less.  They  have  been 
thinned  out  almost  to  the  point  of  extermination  through- 
out the  Eastern  States.  In  the  Rocky  Mountain  region 
they  are  still  plentiful  in  places,  but  are  growing  less 
so;  while  on  the  contrary  the  wolf,  which  was  extermi- 
nated even  more  quickly  in  the  East,  in  the  West  has 
until  recently  been  increasing  in  numbers.  In  north- 
western Colorado  a  dozen  years  ago,  cougars  were  far 
more  plentiful  than  wolves;  whereas  at  the  present  day 
the  wolf  is  probably  the  more  numerous.  Nevertheless, 
there  are  large  areas,  here  and  there  among  the  Rockies, 
in  which  cougars  will  be  fairly  plentiful  for  years  to 
come. 

No  American  beast  has  been  the  subject  of  so  much 
loose  writing  or  of  such  wild  fables  as  the  cougar.  Even 


BOBCAT   IN    PINYON 

From  a  ph.M.M'.i.iph  K  Philip  H.  Stc\\.ui 


WITH    THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          17 

its  name  is  unsettled.  In  the  Eastern  States  it  is  usually 
called  panther  or  painter;  in  the  Western  States,  moun- 
tain lion,  or,  toward  the  South,  Mexican  lion.  The  Span- 
ish-speaking people  usually  call  it  simply  lion.  It  is, 
however,  sometimes  called  cougar  in  the  West  and  South- 
west of  our  country,  and  in  South  America,  puma.  As 
it  is  desirable  where  possible  not  to  use  a  name  that  is 
misleading  and  is  already  appropriated  to  some  entirely 
different  animal,  it  is  best  to  call  it  cougar. 

The  cougar  is  a  very  singular  beast,  shy  and  elusive 
to  an  extraordinary  degree,  very  cowardly  and  yet  blood- 
thirsty and  ferocious,  varying  wonderfully  in  size,  and 
subject,  like  many  other  beasts,  to  queer  freaks  of  char- 
acter in  occasional  individuals.  This  fact  of  individual 
variation  in  size  and  temper  is  almost  always  ignored 
in  treating  of  the  animal ;  whereas  it  ought  never  to  be 
left  out  of  sight. 

The  average  writer,  and  for  the  matter  of  that,  the 
average  hunter,  where  cougars  are  scarce,  knows  little 
or  nothing  of  them,  and  in  describing  them  merely  draws 
upon  the  stock  of  well-worn  myths  which  portray  them 
as  terrible  foes  of  man,  as  dropping  on  their  prey  from 
trees  where  they  have  been  lying  in  wait,  etc.,  etc.  Very 
occasionally  there  appears  an  absolutely  trustworthy  ac- 
count like  that  by  Dr.  Hart  Merriam  in  his  "Adirondack 
Mammals."  But  many  otherwise  excellent  writers  are 
wholly  at  sea  in  reference  to  the  cougar.  Thus  one  of 
the  best  books  on  hunting  in  the  far  West  in  the  old  days 
is  by  Colonel  Dodge.  Yet  when  Colonel  Dodge  came  to 
describe  the  cougar  he  actually  treated  of  it  as  two  species, 


1 8  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

one  of  which,  the  mountain  lion,  he  painted  as  a  most 
ferocious  and  dangerous  opponent  of  man;  while  the 
other,  the  panther,  was  described  as  an  abject  coward, 
which  would  not  even  in  the  last  resort  defend  itself 
against  man — the  two  of  course  being  the  same  animal. 

However,  the  wildest  of  all  fables  about  the  cougar 
has  been  reserved  not  for  hunter  or  popular  writer,  but 
for  a  professed  naturalist.  In  his  charmingly  written 
book,  "  The  Naturalist  in  La  Plata,"  Mr.  Hudson  act- 
ually describes  the  cougar  as  being  friendly  to  man,  dis- 
interestedly adverse  to  harming  him,  and  at  the  same 
time  an  enemy  of  other  large  carnivores.  Mr.  Hudson 
bases  his  opinion  chiefly  upon  the  assertions  of  the 
Gauchos.  The  Gauchos,  however,  go  one  degree  beyond 
Mr.  Hudson,  calling  the  puma  the  "  friend  of  Chris- 
tians"; whereas  Mr.  Hudson  only  ventures  to  attribute 
to  the  beast  humanitarian,  not  theological,  preferences. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Hudson's  belief  in  the  cougar's 
peculiar  friendship  for  man,  and  peculiar  enmity  to  other 
large  beasts  of  prey,  has  not  one  particle  of  foundation 
in  fact  as  regards  at  any  rate  the  North  American  form — 
and  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  the  South  American 
form  would  alone  develop  such  extraordinary  traits.  For 
instance,  Mr.  Hudson  says  that  the  South  American 
puma  when  hunted  will  attack  the  dogs  in  preference  to 
the  man.  In  North  America  he  will  fight  the  dog  if 
the  dog  is  nearest,  and  if  the  man  comes  to  close  quarters 
at  the  same  time  as  the  dog  he  will  attack  the  man  if 
anything  more  readily,  evidently  recognizing  in  him  his 
chief  opponent.  He  will  often  go  up  a  tree  for  a  single 


WITH   THE    COUGAR   HOUNDS          19 

dog.  On  Mr.  Hudson's  theory  he  must  do  this  because 
of  his  altruistic  feeling  toward  the  dog.  In  fact,  Mr. 
Hudson  could  make  out  a  better  case  of  philo-humanity 
for  the  North  American  wolf  than  for  the  North  Ameri- 
can cougar.  Equally  absurd  is  it  to  talk,  as  Mr.  Hudson 
does,  of  the  cougar  as  the  especial  enemy  of  other  fero- 
cious beasts.  Mr.  Hudson  speaks  of  it  as  attacking  and 
conquering  the  jaguar.  Of  this  I  know  nothing,  but  such 
an  extraordinary  statement  should  be  well  fortified  with 
proofs;  and  if  true  it  must  mean  that  the  jaguar  is  an 
infinitely  less  formidable  creature  than  it  has  been 
painted.  In  support  of  his  position  Mr.  Hudson  alludes 
to  the  stories  about  the  cougar  attacking  the  grizzly  bear. 
Here  I  am  on  ground  that  I  do  know.  It  is  true  that 
an  occasional  old  hunter  asserts  that  the  cougar  does  this, 
but  the  old  hunter  who  makes  such  an  assertion  also  in- 
variably insists  that  the  cougar  is  a  ferocious  and  habitual 
man-killer,  and  the  two  statements  rest  upon  equally 
slender  foundations  of  fact.  I  have  never  yet  heard  of 
a  single  authentic  instance  of  a  cougar  interfering  with 
a  full-grown  big  bear.  It  will  kill  bear  cubs  if  it  gets  a 
chance;  but  then  so  will  the  fox  and  the  fisher,  not  to 
speak  of  the  wolf.  In  1894,  a  cougar  killed  a  colt  on  a 
brushy  river  bottom  a  dozen  miles  below  my  ranch  on  the 
Little  Missouri.  I  went  down  to  visit  the  carcass  and 
found  that  it  had  been  taken  possession  of  by  a  large 
grizzly.  Both  I  and  the  hunter  who  was  with  me  were 
very  much  interested  in  what  had  occurred,  and  after  a 
careful  examination  of  the  tracks  we  concluded  that  the 
bear  had  arrived  on  the  second  night  after  the  kill.  He 


20  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

had  feasted  heartily  on  the  remains,  while  the  cougar, 
whose  tracks  were  evident  here  and  there  at  a  little  dis- 
tance from  the  carcass,  had  seemingly  circled  around  it, 
and  had  certainly  not  interfered  with  the  bear,  or  even 
ventured  to  approach  him.  Now,  if  a  cougar  would  ever 
have  meddled  with  a  large  bear  it  would  surely  have 
been  on  such  an  occasion  as  this.  If  very  much  pressed 
by  hunger,  a  large  cougar  will,  if  it  gets  the  chance,  kill 
a  wolf;  but  this  is  only  when  other  game  has  failed,  and 
under  all  ordinary  circumstances  neither  meddles  with 
the  other.  When  I  was  down  in  Texas,  hunting  peccaries 
on  the  Nueces,  I  was  in  a  country  where  both  cougar  and 
jaguar  were  to  be  found;  but  no  hunter  had  ever  heard 
of  either  molesting  the  other,  though  they  were  all  of 
the  opinion  that  when  the  two  met  the  cougar  gave  the 
path  to  his  spotted  brother.  Of  course,  it  is  never  safe 
to  dogmatize  about  the  unknown  in  zoology,  or  to  gen- 
eralize on  insufficient  evidence;  but  as  regards  the  North 
American  cougar  there  is  not  a  particle  of  truth  of  any 
kind,  sort,  or  description  in  the  statement  that  he  is  the 
enemy  of  the  larger  carnivores,  or  the  friend  of  man; 
and  if  the  South  American  cougar,  which  so  strongly 
resembles  its  Northern  brother  in  its  other  habits,  has  de- 
veloped on  these  two  points  the  extraordinary  peculiar- 
ities of  which  Mr.  Hudson  speaks,  full  and  adequate 
proof  should  be  forthcoming;  and  this  proof  is  now 
wholly  wanting. 

Fables  aside,  the  cougar  is  a  very  interesting  creature. 
It  is  found  from  the  cold,  desolate  plains  of  Patagonia 
to  north  of  the  Canadian  line,  and  lives  alike  among  the 


sn< 


WITH   THE    COUGAR   HOUNDS          21 


snow-clad  peaks  of  the  Andes  and  in  the  steaming  forests 
of  the  Amazon.  Doubtless  careful  investigation  will  dis- 
close several  varying  forms  in  an  animal  found  over  such 
immense  tracts  of  country  and  living  under  such  utterly 
diverse  conditions.  But  in  its  essential  habits  and  traits, 
the  big,  slinking,  nearly  uni-colored  cat  seems  to  be  much 
the  same  everywhere,  whether  living  in  mountain,  open 
plain,  or  forest,  under  arctic  cold  or  tropic  heat.  When 
the  settlements  become  thick,  it  retires  to  dense  forest, 
dark  swamp  or  inaccessible  mountain  gorge,  and  moves 
about  only  at  night.  In  wilder  regions  it  not  infrequent- 
ly roams  during  the  day  and  ventures  freely  into  the 
open.  Deer  are  its  customary  prey  where  they  are 
plentiful,  bucks,  does,  and  fawns  being  killed  indiffer- 
ently. Usually  the  deer  is  killed  almost  instantaneously, 
but  occasionally  there  is  quite  a  scuffle,  in  which  the  cou- 
gar may  get  bruised,  though,  as  far  as  I  know,  never 
seriously.  It  is  also  a  dreaded  enemy  of  sheep,  pigs, 
calves,  and  especially  colts,  and  when  pressed  by  hun- 
ger a  big  male  cougar  will  kill  a  full-grown  horse  or 
cow,  moose  or  wapiti.  It  is  the  special  enemy  of  moun- 
tain sheep.  In  1886,  while  hunting  white  goats  north 
of  Clarke's  fork  of  the  Columbia,  in  a  region  where  cou- 
gar were  common,  I  found  them  preying  as  freely  on 
the  goats  as  on  the  deer.  It  rarely  catches  antelope,  but 
is  quick  to  seize  rabbits,  other  small  beasts,  and  even  por- 
cupines, as  well  as  bobcats,  coyotes  and  foxes. 

No  animal,  not  even  the  wolf,  is  so  rarely  seen  or  so 
difficult  to  get  without  dogs.  On  the  other  hand,  no  other 
wild  beast  of  its  size  and  power  is  so  easy  to  kill  by  the  aid 


22  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

of  dogs.  There  are  many  contradictions  in  its  character. 
Like  the  American  wolf,  it  is  certainly  very  much  afraid 
of  man;  yet  it  habitually  follows  the  trail  of  the  hunter  or 
solitary  traveller,  dogging  his  footsteps,  itself  always  un- 
seen. I  have  had  this  happen  to  me  personally.  When 
hungry  it  will  seize  and  carry  off  any  dog;  yet  it  will 
sometimes  go  up  a  tree  when  pursued  even  by  a  single 
small  dog  wholly  unable  to  do  it  the  least  harm.  It  is 
small  wonder  that  the  average  frontier  settler  should 
grow  to  regard  almost  with  superstition  the  great  furtive 
cat  which  he  never  sees,  but  of  whose  presence  he  is  ever 
aware,  and  of  whose  prowess  sinister  proof  is  sometimes 
afforded  by  the  deaths  not  alone  of  his  lesser  stock,  but 
even  of  his  milch  cow  or  saddle  horse. 

The  cougar  is  as  large,  as  powerful,  and  as  formidably 
armed  as  the  Indian  panther,  and  quite  as  well  able  to 
attack  man;  yet  the  instances  of  its  having  done  so  are 
exceedingly  rare.  The  vast  majority  of  the  tales  to  this 
effect  are  undoubtedly  inventions.  But  it  is  foolish  to 
deny  that  such  attacks  on  human  beings  ever  occur. 
There  are  a  number  of  authentic  instances,  the  latest  that 
has  come  to  my  knowledge  being  related  in  the  following 
letter,  of  May  15,  1893,  written  to  Dr.  Merriam  by  Pro- 
fessor W.  H.  Brewer,  of  Yale:  "  In  1880  I  visited  the 
base  of  Mount  Shasta,  and  stopped  a  day  to  renew  the 
memories  of  1862,  when  I  had  climbed  and  measured  this 
mountain.  Panthers  were  numerous  and  were  so  destruc- 
tive to  sheep  that  poisoning  by  strychnine  was  common. 
A  man  living  near  who  had  (as  a  young  hunter)  gone  up 
Mount  Shasta  with  us  in  '62,  now  married  (1880)  and 


on 


WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS    23 


on  a  ranch,  came  to  visit  me,  with  a  little  son  five  or  six 
years  old.  This  boy  when  younger,  but  two  or  three  years 
old,  if  I  recollect  rightly,  had  been  attacked  by  a  pan- 
ther. He  was  playing  in  the  yard  by  the  house  when 
a  lean  two-thirds  grown  panther  came  into  the  yard  and 
seized  the  child  by  the  throat.  The  child  screamed,  and 
alarmed  the  mother  (who  told  me  the  story) .  She  seized 
a  broom  and  rushed  out,  while  an  old  man  at  the  house 
seized  the  gun.  The  panther  let  go  the  child  and  was 
shot.  I  saw  the  boy.  He  had  the  scars  of  the  panther's 
teeth  in  the  cheek,  and  below  on  the  under  side  of  the 
lower  jaw,  and  just  at  the  throat.  This  was  the  only  case 
that  came  to  my  knowledge  at  first  hand  of  a  panther  at- 
tacking a  human  being  in  that  State,  except  one  or  two 
cases  where  panthers,  exasperated  by  wounds,  had  fought 
with  the  hunters  who  had  wounded  them."  This  was  a 
young  cougar,  bold,  stupid,  and  very  hungry.  Goff  told 
me  of  one  similar  case  where  a  cougar  stalked  a  young 
girl,  but  was  shot  just  before  it  was  close  enough  to  make 
the  final  rush.  As  I  have  elsewhere  related,  I  know  of 
two  undoubted  cases,  one  in  Mississippi,  one  in  Florida, 
where  a  negro  was  attacked  and  killed  by  a  cougar,  while 
alone  in  a  swamp  at  night.  But  these  occurred  many 
years  ago.  The  instance  related  by  Professor  Brewer  is 
the  only  one  I  have  come  across  happening  in  recent 
years,  in  which  the  cougar  actually  seized  a  human  being 
with  the  purpose  of  making  prey  of  it;  though  doubtless 
others  have  occurred.  I  have  never  known  the  American 
wolf  actually  to  attack  a  human  being  from  hunger  or 
to  make  prey  of  him;  whereas  the  Old- World  wolf,  like 


24  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  Old-World  leopard,  undoubtedly  sometimes   turns 
man-eater. 

Even  when  hunted  the  cougar  shows  itself,  as  a  rule, 
an  abject  coward,  not  to  be  compared  in  courage  and 
prowess  with  the  grizzly  bear,  and  but  little  more  dan- 
gerous to  man  than  is  the  wolf  under  similar  circum- 
stances. Without  dogs  it  is  usually  a  mere  chance  that 
one  is  killed.  GofI  has  killed  some  300  cougars  during 
the  sixteen  years  he  has  been  hunting  in  northwestern 
Colorado,  yet  all  but  two  of  them  were  encountered  while 
he  was  with  his  pack;  although  this  is  in  a  region  where 
they  were  plentiful.  When  hunted  with  good  dogs  their 
attention  is  so  taken  up  with  the  pack  that  they  have 
little  time  to  devote  to  men.  When  hunted  without  dogs 
they  never  charge  unless  actually  cornered,  and,  as  a  gen- 
eral rule,  not  even  then,  unless  the  man  chooses  to  come 
right  up  to  them.  I  knew  of  one  Indian  being  killed 
in  1887,  and  near  my  ranch  a  cowboy  was  mauled;  but 
in  the  first  instance  the  cougar  had  been  knocked  down 
and  the  Indian  was  bending  over  it  when  it  revived; 
and  in  the  next  instance,  the  cowboy  literally  came  right 
on  top  of  the  animal.  Now,  under  such  circumstances 
either  a  bull  elk  or  a  blacktail  buck  will  occasionally 
fight;  twice  I  have  known  of  wounded  wapiti  regularly 
charging,  and  one  of  my  own  cowboys,  George  Myer, 
was  very  roughly  handled  by  a  blacktail  buck  which  he 
had  wounded.  In  all  his  experience  Goff  says  that  save 
when  he  approached  one  too  close  when  it  was  cornered 
by  the  dogs,  he  never  but  once  had  a  cougar  start  to 
charge  him,  and  on  that  occasion  it  was  promptly  killed 


WITH   THE    COUGAR   HOUNDS          25 

by  a  bullet.  Usually  the  cougar  does  not  even  charge 
at  the  dogs  beyond  a  few  feet,  confining  itself  to  seizing 
or  striking  any  member  of  the  pack  which  comes  close 
up;  although  it  will  occasionally,  when  much  irritated, 
make  a  rapid  dash  and  seize  some  bold  assailant.  While 
I  was  on  my  hunt,  one  of  Goffs  brothers  lost  a  hound  in 
hunting  a  cougar;  there  were  but  two  hounds,  and  the 
cougar  would  not  tree  for  them,  finally  seizing  and  kill- 
ing one  that  came  too  near.  At  the  same  time  a  ranchman 
not  far  off  set  his  cattle  dog  on  a  cougar,  which  after  a 
short  run  turned  and  killed  the  dog.  But  time  and  again 
cougars  are  brought  to  bay  or  treed  by  dogs  powerless 
to  do  them  the  slightest  damage;  and  they  usually  meet 
their  death  tamely  when  the  hunter  comes  up.  I  have 
had  no  personal  experience  either  with  the  South  Ameri- 
can jaguar  or  the  Old-World  leopard  or  panther;  but 
these  great  spotted  cats  must  be  far  more  dangerous  ad- 
versaries than  the  cougar. 

It  is  true,  as  I  have  said,  that  a  cougar  will  follow 
a  man;  but  then  a  weasel  will  sometimes  do  the  same 
thing.  Whatever  the  cougar's  motive,  it  is  certain  that 
in  the  immense  majority  of  cases  there  is  not  the  slightest 
danger  of  his  attacking  the  man  he  follows.  Dr.  Hart 
Merriam  informs  me,  however,  that  he  is  satisfied  that 
he  came  across  one  genuine  instance  of  a  cougar  killing 
a  man  whose  tracks  he  had  dogged.  It  cannot  be  too 
often  repeated,  that  we  must  never  lose  sight  of  the  indi- 
vidual variation  in  character  and  conduct  among  wild 
beasts.  A  thousand  times  a  cougar  might  follow  a  man 
either  not  intending  or  not  daring  to  attack  him,  while 


26  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

in  the  thousandth  and  first  case  it  might  be  that  the  tem- 
per of  the  beast  and  the  conditions  were  such  that  the 
attack  would  be  made. 

Other  beasts  show  almost  the  same  wide  variation  in 
temper.  Wolves,  for  instance,  are  normally  exceedingly 
wary  of  man.  In  this  Colorado  hunt  I  often  came  across 
their  tracks,  and  often  heard  their  mournful,  but  to  my 
ears  rather  attractive,  baying  at  night,  but  I  never  caught 
a  glimpse  of  one  of  them ;  nor  during  the  years  when  I 
spent  much  of  my  time  on  my  ranch  did  I  ever  know  of 
a  wolf  venturing  to  approach  anywhere  near  a  man  in 
the  day-time,  though  I  have  had  them  accompany  me 
after  nightfall,  and  have  occasionally  come  across  them  by 
accident  in  daylight.  But  on  the  Keystone  Ranch,  where 
I  spent  three  weeks  on  this  particular  trip,  an  incident 
which  occurred  before  my  arrival  showed  that  wolves  oc- 
casionally act  with  extraordinary  boldness.  The  former 
owner  of  the  ranch,  Colonel  Price,  and  one  of  the  cow- 
hands, Sabey  (both  of  whom  told  me  the  story),  were 
driving  out  in  a  buggy  from  Meeker  to  the  ranch  accom- 
panied by  a  setter  dog.  They  had  no  weapon  with  them. 
Two  wolves  joined  them  and  made  every  effort  to  get 
at  the  dog.  They  accompanied  the  wagon  for  nearly  a 
mile,  venturing  to  within  twenty  yards  of  it.  They  paid 
no  heed  whatever  to  the  shouts  and  gestures  of  the  men, 
but  did  not  quite  dare  to  come  to  close  quarters,  and 
finally  abandoned  their  effort.  Now,  this  action  on  their 
part  was,  as  far  as  my  experience  goes,  quite  as  excep- 
tional among  American  wolves  as  it  is  exceptional  for 
a  cougar  to  attack  a  man.  Of  course,  these  wolves  were 


WITH   THE   COUGAR   HOUNDS          27 

not  after  the  men.  They  were  simply  after  the  dog;  but 
I  have  never  within  my  own  experience  come  upon  an- 
other instance  of  wolves  venturing  to  attack  a  domestic 
animal  in  the  immediate  presence  of  and  protected  by  a 
man.  Exactly  as  these  two  wolves  suddenly  chose  to 
behave  with  an  absolutely  unexpected  daring,  so  a  cougar 
will  occasionally  lose  the  fear  of  man  which  is  inherent 

(in  its  race. 

Normally,  then,  the  cougar  is  not  in  any  way  a  for- 
midable foe  to  man,  and  it  is  certainly  by  no  means  as 
dangerous  to  dogs  as  it  could  be  if  its  courage  and  in- 
telligence equalled  its  power  to  do  mischief.  It  strikes 
with  its  forepaw  like  a  cat,  lacerating  the  foe  with  its 
sharp  claws ;  or  else  it  holds  the  animal  with  them,  while 
the  muscular  forearm  draws  it  in  until  the  fatal  bite  may 
be  inflicted.  Whenever  possible  it  strives  to  bite  an  as- 
sailant in  the  head.  Occasionally,  when  fighting  with  a 
large  dog,  a  cougar  will  throw  itself  on  its  back  and  try 
to  rip  open  its  antagonist  with  its  hind  feet.  Male  cou- 
gars often  fight  desperately  among  themselves. 

Although  a  silent  beast,  yet  at  times,  especially  during 
the  breeding  season,  the  males  utter  a  wild  scream,  and 
the  females  also  wail  or  call.  I  once  heard  one  cry  re- 
peatedly after  nightfall,  seemingly  while  prowling  for 
game.  On  an  evening  in  the  summer  of  1897  Dr.  Mer- 
riam  had  a  rather  singular  experience  with  a  cougar. 
His  party  was  camped  in  the  forest  by  Tannum  Lake, 
on  the  east  slope  of  the  Cascades,  near  the  headwaters 
of  a  branch  of  the  Yakima.  The  horses  were  feeding 
near  by.  Shortly  after  dark  a  cougar  cried  loudly  in 


28  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  gloom,  and  the  frightened  horses  whinnied  and 
stampeded.  The  cougar  cried  a  number  of  times  after- 
ward, but  the  horses  did  not  again  answer.  None  of 
them  was  killed,  however;  and  next  morning,  after  some 
labor,  all  were  again  gathered  together.  In  1884  I  had 
a  somewhat  similar  experience  with  a  bear,  in  the  Big 
Horn  Mountains. 

Occasionally,  but  not  often,  the  cougars  I  shot  snarled 
or  uttered  a  low,  thunderous  growl  as  we  approached  the 
tree,  or  as  the  dogs  came  upon  them  in  the  cave.  In  the 
death-grapple  they  were  silent,  excepting  that  one  young 
cougar  snarled  and  squalled  as  it  battled  with  the  dogs. 

The  cougar  is  sometimes  tamed.  A  friend  of  mine 
had  one  which  was  as  good-natured  as  possible  until  it 
was  a  year  old,  when  it  died.  But  one  kept  by  another 
friend,  while  still  quite  young,  became  treacherous  and 
dangerous.  I  doubt  if  they  would  ever  become  as  trust- 
worthy as  a  tame  wolf,  which,  if  taken  when  a  very  young 
puppy,  will  often  grow  up  exactly  like  a  dog.  Two  or 
three  years  ago  there  was  such  a  tame  wolf  with  the  Colo- 
rado Springs  greyhounds.  It  was  safer  and  more  friendly 
than  many  collies,  and  kept  on  excellent  terms  with  the 
great  greyhounds;  though  these  were  themselves  solely 
used  to  hunt  wolves  and  coyotes,  and  tackled  them  with 
headlong  ferocity,  having,  unaided,  killed  a  score  or  two 
of  the  large  wolves  and  hundreds  of  coyotes. 

Hunting  in  the  snow  we  were  able  to  tell  very  clearly 
what  the  cougars  whose  trails  we  were  following  had 
been  doing.  GofFs  eye  for  a  trail  was  unerring,  and  he 
read  at  a  glance  the  lesson  it  taught.  All  the  cougars 


WITH   THE   COUGAR   HOUNDS          29 

which  we  came  across  were  living  exclusively  upon  deer, 
and  their  stomachs  were  filled  with  nothing  else;  much 
hair  being  mixed  with  the  meat.  In  each  case  the  deer 
was  caught  by  stalking  and  not  by  lying  in  wait,  and 
the  cougar  never  went  up  a  tree  except  to  get  rid  of  the 
dogs.  In  the  day-time  it  retired  to  a  ledge,  or  ravine,  or 
dense  thicket,  starting  to  prowl  as  the  dark  came  on.  So 
far  as  I  could  see  the  deer  in  each  case  was  killed  by  a 
bite  in  the  throat  or  neck.  The  cougar  simply  rambled 
around  in  likely  grounds  until  it  saw  or  smelled  its 
quarry,  and  then  crept  up  stealthily  until  with  one  or 
two  tremendous  bounds  it  was  able  to  seize  its  prey. 
If,  as  frequently  happened,  the  deer  took  alarm  in 
time  to  avoid  the  first  few  bounds,  it  always  got  away, 
for  though  the  cougar  is  very  fast  for  a  short  distance, 
it  has  no  wind  whatever.  It  cannot  pursue  a  deer  for 
any  length  of  time,  nor  run  before  a  dog  for  more  than 
a  few  hundred  yards,  if  the  dog  is  close  up  at  the  start. 
I  was  informed  by  the  ranchmen  that  when  in  May  the 
deer  leave  the  country,  the  cougars  turn  their  attention 
to  the  stock,  and  are  very  destructive.  They  have  a  special 
fondness  for  horseflesh  and  kill  almost  every  colt  where 
they  are  plentiful,  while  the  big  males  work  havoc  with 
the  saddle  bands  on  the  ranches,  as  well  as  among  the 
brood  mares.  Except  in  the  case  of  a  female  with  young 
they  are  roving,  wandering  beasts,  and  roam  great  dis- 
tances. After  leaving  their  day  lairs,  on  a  ledge,  or  in 
a  gorge  or  thicket,  they  spend  the  night  travelling  across 
the  flats,  along  the  ridges,  over  the  spurs.  When  they 
kill  a  deer  they  usually  lie  not  very  far  away,  and  do 


3o  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

not  again  wander  until  they  are  hungry.  The  males 
travel  very  long  distances  in  the  mating  season.  Their 
breeding-time  is  evidently  irregular.  We  found  kittens 
with  their  eyes  not  yet  open  in  the  middle  of  January. 
Two  of  the  female  cougars  we  killed  were  pregnant— 
in  one  case  the  young  would  have  been  born  almost  im- 
mediately, that  is,  in  February;  and  in  the  other  case  in 
March.  One,  which  had  a  partially  grown  young  one 
of  over  fifty  pounds  with  it,  still  had  milk  in  its  teats. 
At  the  end  of  January  we  found  a  male  and  female  to- 
gether, evidently  mating.  Goff  has  also  found  the  young 
just  dropped  in  May,  and  even  in  June.  The  females 
outnumber  the  males.  Of  the  fourteen  we  killed,  but 
three  were  males. 

When  a  cougar  kills  a  deer  in  the  open  it  invariably 
drags  it  under  some  tree  or  shelter  before  beginning  to 
eat.  All  the  carcasses  we  came  across  had  been  thus 
dragged,  the  trail  showing  distinctly  in  the  snow.  Goff, 
however,  asserted  that  in  occasional  instances  he  had 
known  a  cougar  to  carry  a  deer  so  that  only  its  legs  trailed 
on  the  ground. 

The  fourteen  cougars  we  killed  showed  the  widest 
variation  not  only  in  size  but  in  color,  as  shown  by  the 
following  table.  Some  were  as  slaty-gray  as  deer  when 
in  the  so-called  "  blue  " ;  others,  rufous,  almost  as  bright 
as  deer  in  the  "  red."  I  use  these  two  terms  to  describe 
the  color  phases;  though  in  some  instances  the  tint  was 
very  undecided.  The  color  phase  evidently  has  nothing 
to  do  with  age,  sex,  season,  or  locality.  In  this  table  the 
first  cougar  is  the  one  killed  by  Stewart,  the  sixth  by 


WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS 


Webb.  The  length  is  measured  in  a  straight  line,  "  be- 
tween uprights,"  from  the  nose  to  the  extreme  tip  of  the 
tail,  when  the  beast  was  stretched  out.  The  animals  were 
weighed  with  the  steelyard  and  also  spring  scales.  Be- 
fore measuring,  we  pulled  the  beast  out  as  straight  as  we 
possibly  could;  and  as  the  biggest  male  represents  about, 
or  very  nearly,  the  maximum  for  the  species,  it  is  easy 


Sex. 

Color. 

Length. 

Weight. 

Date. 

Feet. 

Inches. 

Pounds. 

1901. 

1Female. 

Blue. 

4 

II 

47 

January     19 

1  Female. 

Red. 

4 

Ilji 

51 

February  12 

Female. 

Blue. 

6 

80 

January    14 

Female. 

Red. 

6 

4 

102 

January    28 

Female. 

Blue. 

6 

5 

105 

February  12 

Female. 

Blue. 

6 

5 

I07 

January    18 

Female. 

Red. 

6 

9 

108 

January    24 

Female. 

Blue. 

6 

7 

118 

January    15 

Female. 

Blue. 

6 

7 

1  20 

January    3  1 

Female. 

Red. 

6 

9 

124 

February    5 

Female. 

Blue. 

7 

!33 

February    8 

Male. 

Red. 

7 

6 

160 

February  13 

Male. 

Blue. 

7 

8 

164 

January    27 

Male. 

Red. 

8 

227 

February  14 

to  see  that  there  can  be  no  basis  for  the  talk  one  sometimes 
hears  about  ten  and  eleven  foot  cougars.  No  cougar, 
measured  at  all  fairly,  has  ever  come  anywhere  near 
reaching  the  length  of  nine  feet.  The  fresh  hide  can 
easily  be  stretched  a  couple  of  feet  extra.  Except  the  first 
two,  all  were  full  grown;  the  biggest  male  was  nearly 
three  times  the  size  of  the  smallest  female. 

I  shot  five  bobcats :  two  old  males  weighing  39  and  31 

1  Young. 


32  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

pounds  respectively;  and  three  females,  weighing,  respec- 
tively, 25,  21,  and  1 8  pounds.  Webb  killed  two,  a  male 
of  29  pounds  and  a  female  of  20;  and  Stewart  two  females, 
one  of  22  pounds,  and  the  other  a  young  one  of  1 1  pounds. 

I  sent  the  cougar  and  bobcat  skulls  to  Dr.  Merriam, 
at  the  Biological  Survey,  Department  of  Agriculture, 
Washington.  He  wrote  me  as  follows :  "  The  big  [cou- 
gar] skull  is  certainly  a  giant.  I  have  compared  it  with 
the  largest  in  our  collection  from  British  Columbia  and 
Wyoming,  and  find  it  larger  than  either.  It  is  in  fact 
the  largest  skull  of  any  member  of  the  Felis  concolor 
group  I  have  seen.  A  hasty  preliminary  examination  in- 
dicates that  the  animal  is  quite  different  from  the  north- 
west coast  form,  but  that  it  is  the  same  as  my  horse-killer 
from  Wyoming — Felis  hippolestes.  In  typical  Felis  con- 
color  from  Brazil  the  skull  is  lighter,  the  brain-case  thin- 
ner and  more  smoothly  rounded,  devoid  of  the  strongly 
developed  sagittal  crest;  the  under  jaw  straighter  and 
lighter. 

"  Your  series  of  skulls  from  Colorado  is  incomparably 
the  largest,  most  complete  and  most  valuable  series  ever 
brought  together  from  any  single  locality,  and  will  be  of 
inestimable  value  in  determining  the  amount  of  indi- 
vidual variation." 

We  rode  in  to  the  Keystone  Ranch  late  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  second  day  after  leaving  Meeker.  We  had 
picked  up  a  couple  of  bobcats  on  the  way,  and  had  found 
a  cougar's  kill  (or  bait,  as  Goff  called  it) — a  doe,  almost 
completely  eaten.  The  dogs  puzzled  for  several  hours 


WITH   THE   COUGAR    HOUNDS          33 

over  the  cold  trail  of  the  cougar;  but  it  was  old,  and  ran 
hither  and  thither  over  bare  ground,  so  that  they  finally 
lost  it.  The  ranch  was  delightfully  situated  at  the  foot 
of  high  wooded  hills  broken  by  cliffs,  and  it  was  pleasant 
to  reach  the  warm,  comfortable  log  buildings,  with  their 
clean  rooms,  and  to  revel  in  the  abundant,  smoking-hot 
dinner,  after  the  long,  cold  hours  in  the  saddle.  As  every- 
where else  in  the  cattle  country  nowadays,  a  successful 
effort  had  been  made  to  store  water  on  the  Keystone,  and 
there  were  great  stretches  of  wire  fencing — two  improve- 
ments entirely  unknown  in  former  days.  But  the  fore- 
man, William  Wilson,  and  the  two  punchers  or  cow- 
hands, Sabey  and  Collins,  were  of  the  old  familiar  type- 
skilled,  fearless,  hardy,  hard-working,  with  all  the  in- 
telligence and  self-respect  that  we  like  to  claim  as  typical 
of  the  American  character  at  its  best.  All  three  carried 
short  saddle  guns  when  they  went  abroad,  and  killed  a 
good  many  coyotes,  and  now  and  then  a  gray  wolf.  The 
cattle  were  for  the  most  part  grade  Herefords,  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  wild,  slab-sided,  long-horned  creatures 
which  covered  the  cattle  country  a  score  of  years  ago. 

The  next  day,  January  i4th,  we  got  our  first  cougar. 
This  kind  of  hunting  was  totally  different  from  that  to 
which  I  had  been  accustomed.  In  the  first  place,  there 
was  no  need  of  always  being  on  the  alert  for  a  shot,  as 
it  was  the  dogs  who  did  the  work.  In  the  next  place, 
instead  of  continually  scanning  the  landscape,  what  we 
had  to  do  was  to  look  down  so  as  to  be  sure  not  to  pass 
over  any  tracks;  for  frequently  a  cold  trail  would  be  in- 
dicated so  faintly  that  the  dogs  themselves  might  pass  it 


36  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

is  a  rabbit  right  here,  and  I  want  o  take  his  picture." 
Accordingly  we  waited,  the  cougar  .iot  fifty  yards  off  and 
the  dogs  yelling  and  trying  to  get  up  the  tree  after  it, 
while  Stewart  crept  up  to  the  rabbit  and  got  a  kodak  some 
six  feet  distant.  Then  we  resumed  our  march  toward  the 
tree,  and  the  cougar,  not  liking  the  sight  of  the  reinforce- 
ments, jumped  out.  She  came  down  just  outside  the  pack 
and  ran  up  hill.  So  quick  was  she  that  the  dogs  failed 
to  seize  her,  and  for  the  first  fifty  yards  she  went  a  great 
deal  faster  than  they  did.  Both  in  he  jump  and  in  the 
run  she  held  her  tail  straight  out  behind  her;  I  found 
out  afterward  that  sometimes  one  will  throw  its  tail 
straight  in  the  air,  and  when  walki  ig  along,  when  first 
roused  by  the  pack,  before  they  are  close,  will,  if  angry, 
lash  the  tail  from  side  to  side,  at  the  same  time  grinning 
and  snarling. 

In  a  minute  the  cougar  went  up  another  tree,  but, 
as  we  approached,  again  jumped  down,  and  on  this  oc- 
casion, after  running  a  couple  of  hundred  yards,  the  dogs 
seized  it.  The  worry  was  terrific;  the  growling,  snarling, 
and  yelling  rang  among  the  rocks;  and  leaving  our  horses 
we  plunged  at  full  speed  through  the  snow  down  the 
rugged  ravine  in  which  the  fight  was  going  on.  It  was 
a  small  though  old  female,  only  a  few  pounds  heavier 
than  either  Turk  or  Jim,  and  the  dogs  had  the  upper 
hand  when  we  arrived.  They  would  certainly  have 
killed  it  unassisted,  but  as  it  was  doing  some  damage  to 
the  pack,  and  might  at  any  moment  kill  a  dog,  I  ended 
the  struggle  by  a  knife-thrust  behind  the  shoulder.  To 
shoot  would  have  been  quite  as  dangerous  for  the  dogs 


•t 


WITH   THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          37 

as  for  their  quarry.  Three  of  the  dogs  were  badly 
scratched,  and  Turk  had  been  bitten  through  one  foreleg, 
and  Boxer  through  one  hind  leg. 

As  will  be  seen  by  the  measurements  given  before, 
this  was  much  the  smallest  full-grown  cougar  we  got.  It 
was  also  one  of  the  oldest,  as  its  teeth  showed,  and  it 
gave  me  a  false  idea  of  the  size  of  cougars;  although  I 
knew  they  varied  in  size  I  was  not  prepared  for  the  wide 
variation  we  actually  found. 

The  fighting  dogs  were  the  ones  that  enabled  me  to 
use  the  knife.  All  three  went  straight  for  the  head,  and 
when  they  got  hold  they  kept  their  jaws  shut,  worrying 
and  pulling,  and  completely  absorbing  the  attention  of 
the  cougar,  so  as  to  give  an  easy  chance  for  the  death- 
blow. The  hounds  meanwhile  had  seized  the  cougar  be- 
hind, and  Jim,  with  his  alligator  jaws,  probably  did  as 
much  damage  as  Turk.  However,  neither  in  this  nor  in 
any  other  instance,  did  any  one  of  the  dogs  manage  to  get 
its  teeth  through  the  thick  skin.  When  cougars  fight 
among  themselves  their  claws  and  fangs  leave  great  scars, 
but  their  hides  are  too  thick  for  the  dogs  to  get  their 
teeth  through.  On  the  other  hand,  a  cougar's  jaws  have 
great  power,  and  dogs  are  frequently  killed  by  a  single 
bite,  the  fangs  being  driven  through  the  brain  or  spine; 
or  they  break  a  dog's  leg  or  cut  the  big  blood-vessels  of 
the  throat. 

I  had  been  anxious  to  get  a  set  of  measurements  and 
weights  of  cougars  to  give  to  Dr.  Hart  Merriam.  Ac- 
cordingly I  was  carrying  a  tape,  while  GofT,  instead  of 
a  rifle,  had  a  steelyard  in  his  gun  scabbard.  We  weighed 


3 8  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

and  measured  the  cougar,  and  then  took  lunch,  making 
as  impartial  a  distribution  of  it  as  was  possible  among 
ourselves  and  the  different  members  of  the  pack;  for,  of 
course,  we  were  already  growing  to  have  a  hearty  fellow- 
feeling  for  each  individual  dog. 

The  next  day  we  were  again  in  luck.  After  about  two 
hours'  ride  we  came  upon  an  old  trail.  It  led  among 
low  hills,  covered  with  pinyon  and  cedar,  and  broken  by 
gullies  or  washouts,  in  whose  sharp  sides  of  clay  the  water 
had  made  holes  and  caves.  Soon  the  hounds  left  it  to 
follow  a  bobcat,  and  we  had  a  lively  gallop  through  the 
timber,  dodging  the  sharp  snags  of  the  dead  branches 
as  best  we  might.  The  cat  got  into  a  hole  in  a  side 
washout;  Baldy  went  in  after  it,  and  the  rest  of  us,  men 
and  dogs,  clustered  about  to  look  in.  After  a  consider- 
able time  he  put  the  cat  out  of  the  other  end  of  the  hole, 
nearly  a  hundred  yards  off,  close  to  the  main  washout. 
The  first  we  knew  of  it  we  saw  it  coming  straight  toward 
us,  its  tail  held  erect  like  that  of  a  whitetail  deer.  Be- 
fore either  we  or  the  dogs  quite  grasped  the  situation  it 
bolted  into  another  hole  almost  at  our  feet,  and  this  time 
Baldy  could  not  find  it,  or  else  could  not  get  at  it.  Then 
we  took  up  the  cougar  trail  again.  It  criss-crossed  in 
every  direction.  We  finally  found  an  old  "  bait,"  a  buck. 
It  was  interesting  to  see  the  way  in  which  the  cougar  had 
prowled  from  point  to  point,  and  the  efforts  it  had  made 
to  approach  the  deer  which  it  saw  or  smelled.  Once 
we  came  to  where  it  had  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  a 
cliff,  sitting  on  its  haunches  with  its  long  tail  straight 
behind  it  and  looking  out  across  the  valley.  After  it  had 


WITH    THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          39 

killed,  according  to  the  invariable  custom  of  its  kind,  it 
had  dragged  the  deer  from  the  open,  where  it  had  over- 
taken it,  to  the  shelter  of  a  group  of  trees. 

We  finally  struck  the  fresh  trail;  but  it,  also,  led 
hither  and  thither,  and  we  got  into  such  a  maze  of  tracks 
that  the  dogs  were  completely  puzzled.  After  a  couple 
of  hours  of  vain  travelling  to  and  fro,  we  gave  up  the 
effort,  called  the  dogs  off,  and  started  back  beside  a  large 
washout  which  led  along  between  two  ridges.  Goff,  as 
usual,  was  leading,  the  dogs  following  and  continually 
skirting  to  one  side  or  the  other.  Suddenly  they  all  began 
to  show  great  excitement,  and  then  one  gave  furious 
tongue  at  the  mouth  of  a  hole  in  some  sunken  and  broken 
ground  not  thirty  yards  to  our  right.  The  whole  pack 
rushed  toward  the  challenge,  the  fighters  leaped  into  the 
hole,  and  in  another  moment  the  row  inside  told  us  that 
they  had  found  a  cougar  at  home.  We  jumped  off  and 
ran  down  to  see  if  we  could  be  of  assistance.  To  get  into 
the  hole  was  impossible,  for  two  or  three  hounds  had 
jumped  down  to  join  the  fighters,  and  we  could  see  noth- 
ing but  their  sterns.  Then  we  saw  Turk  backing  out  with 
a  dead  kitten  in  his  mouth.  I  had  supposed  that  a  cougar 
would  defend  her  young  to  the  last,  but  such  was  not  the 
case  in  this  instance.  For  some  minutes  she  kept  the  dogs 
at  bay,  but  then  gradually  gave  ground,  leaving  her  three 
kittens.  Of  course,  the  dogs  killed  them  instantly,  much 
to  our  regret,  as  we  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to 
have  kept  them  alive.  As  soon  as  she  had  abandoned 
them,  away  she  went  completely  through  the  low  cave 
or  hole,  leaped  out  of  the  other  end,  which  was  some 


4o  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

thirty  or  forty  yards  off,  scaled  the  bank,  and  galloped 
into  the  woods,  the  pack  getting  after  her  at  once.  She 
did  not  run  more  than  a  couple  of  hundred  yards,  and 
as  we  tore  up  on  our  horses  we  saw  her  standing  in  the 
lower  branches  of  a  pinyon  only  six  or  eight  feet  from 
the  ground.  She  was  not  snarling  or  grinning,  and 
looked  at  us  as  quietly  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  As 
we  leaped  out  of  the  saddles  she  jumped  down  from  the 
tree  and  ran  off  through  the  pack.  They  were  after  her 
at  once,  however,  and  a  few  yards  farther  on  she  started 
up  another  tree.  Either  Tony  or  Baldy  grabbed  her  by 
the  tip  of  the  tail,  she  lost  her  footing  for  a  moment, 
and  the  whole  pack  seized  her.  She  was  a  powerful  fe- 
male of  about  the  average  size,  being  half  as  heavy  again 
as  the  one  we  first  got,  and  made  a  tremendous  fight;  and 
savage  enough  she  looked,  her  ears  tight  back  against 
her  head,  her  yellow  eyes  flashing,  and  her  great  teeth 
showing  as  she  grinned.  For  a  moment  the  dogs  had  her 
down,  but  biting  and  striking  she  freed  her  head  and 
fore  quarters  from  the  fighters,  and  faced  us  as  we  ran 
up,  the  hounds  still  having  her  from  behind.  This  was 
another  chance  for  the  knife,  and  I  cheered  on  the 
fighters.  Again  they  seized  her  by  the  head,  but  though 
absolutely  stanch  dogs,  their  teeth,  as  I  have  said,  had 
begun  to  suffer,  and  they  were  no  longer  always  able  to 
make  their  holds  good.  Just  as  I  was  about  to  strike 
her  she  knocked  Turk  loose  with  a  blow,  bit  Baldy,  and 
then,  her  head  being  free,  turned  upon  me.  Fortunately, 
Tony  caught  her  free  paw  on  that  side,  while  I  jammed 
the  gun-butt  into  her  jaws  with  my  left  hand  and  struck 


WITH   THE   COUGAR   HOUNDS          41 

home  with  the  right,  the  knife  driving  straight  to  the 
heart.  The  deep  fang  marks  she  left  in  the  stock,  biting 
the  corner  of  the  shoulder  clean  off,  gave  an  idea  of  the 
power  of  her  jaws.  If  it  had  been  the  very  big  male 
cougar  which  I  afterward  killed,  the  stock  would  doubt- 
less have  been  bitten  completely  in  two. 

The  dogs  were  pretty  well  damaged,  and  all  retired 
and  lay  down  under  the  trees,  where  they  licked  their 
wounds,  and  went  to  sleep ;  growling  savagely  at  one  an- 
oth'er  when  they  waked,  but  greeting  us  with  demonstra- 
tive affection,  and  trotting  eagerly  out  to  share  our  lunch 
as  soon  as  we  began  to  eat  it.  Unaided,  they  would  ulti- 
mately have  killed  the  cougar,  but  the  chance  of  one  or 
two  of  them  being  killed  or  crippled  was  too  great  for 
us  to  allow  this  to  be  done;  and  in  the  mix-up  of  the 
struggle  it  was  not  possible  to  end  it  with  the  rifle.  The 
writhing,  yelling  tangle  offered  too  shifting  a  mark;  one 
would  have  been  as  apt  to  hit  a  dog  as  the  cougar.  Goff 
told  me  that  the  pack  had  often  killed  cougars  unassisted; 
but  in  the  performance  of  such  feats  the  best  dogs  were 
frequently  killed,  and  this  was  not  a  risk  to  be  taken 
lightly. 

In  some  books  the  writers  speak  as  if  the  male  and 
female  cougar  live  together  and  jointly  seek  food  for  the 
young.  We  never  found  a  male  cougar  anywhere  near 
either  a  female  with  young  or  a  pregnant  female.  Ac- 
cording to  my  observation  the  male  only  remains  with 
the  female  for  a  short  time,  during  the  mating  season,  at 
which  period  he  travels  great  distances  in  search  of  his 
temporary  mates — for  the  females  far  outnumber  the 


42  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

males.  The  cougar  is  normally  a  very  solitary  beast. 
The  young — two  to  four  in  number,  though  more  than 
one  or  two  rarely  grow  up — follow  the  mother  until  over 
half  grown.  The  mother  lives  entirely  alone  with  the 
kittens  while  they  are  small.  As  the  males  fight  so 
fiercely  among  themselves,  it  may  be  that  the  old  he-cou- 
gars kill  the  young  of  their  own  sex;  a  ranchman  whom 
I  knew  once  found  the  body  of  a  young  male  cougar 
which  had  evidently  been  killed  by  an  old  one;  but  I 
cannot  say  whether  or  not  this  was  an  exceptional  case. 

During  the  next  ten  days  Stewart  and  Webb  each  shot 
a  cougar.  Webb's  was  got  by  as  pretty  an  exhibition  of 
trailing  on  the  part  of  GofI  and  his  hounds  as  one  could 
wish  to  see.  We  ran  across  its  old  tracks  while  coming 
home  on  Wednesday,  January  i6th.  The  next  day, 
Thursday,  we  took  up  the  trail,  but  the  animal  had  trav- 
elled a  long  distance;  and,  as  cougars  so  often  do,  had 
spent  much  of  its  time  walking  along  ledges,  or  at  the 
foot  of  the  cliffs,  where  the  sun  had  melted  the  snow  off 
the  ground.  In  consequence,  the  dogs  were  often  at  fault. 
Moreover,  bobcats  were  numerous,  and  twice  the  pack 
got  after  one,  running  a  couple  of  hours  before,  in  one 
instance,  the  cat  went  into  a  cave,  and,  in  the  other,  took 
to  a  tree,  where  it  was  killed  by  Webb.  At  last,  when 
darkness  came  on,  we  were  forced  to  leave  the  cougar 
trail  and  ride  home;  a  very  attractive  ride,  too,  loping 
rapidly  over  the  snow-covered  flats,  while  above  us  the 
great  stars  fairly  blazed  in  the  splendor  of  the  winter 
night. 

Early  next  morning  we  again  took  up  the  trail,  and 


WITH  THE  COUGAR  HOUNDS 


43 


after  a  little  while  found  where  it  was  less  than  thirty-six 
hours  old.  The  dogs  now  ran  it  well,  but  were  thrown 
out  again  on  a  large  bare  hillside,  until  Boxer  succeeded 
in  recovering  the  scent.  They  went  up  a  high  mountain 
and  we  toiled  after  them.  Again  they  lost  the  trail,  and 
while  at  fault  jumped  a  big  bobcat  which  they  ran  up 
a  tree.  After  shooting  him  we  took  lunch,  and  started 
to  circle  for  the  trail.  Most  of  the  dogs  kept  with  Goff, 
but  Jim  got  off  to  one  side  on  his  own  account;  and  sud- 
denly his  baying  told  us  that  he  had  jumped  the  cougar. 
The  rest  of  the  pack  tore  toward  him  and  after  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  run  they  had  the  quarry  treed.  The  ground 
was  too  rough  for  riding,  and  we  had  to  do  some  stiff 
climbing  to  get  to  it  on  foot. 

Stewart's  cougar  was  a  young-of-the-year,  and,  ac- 
cording to  his  custom,  he  took  several  photographs  of  it. 
Then  he  tried  to  poke  it  so  that  it  would  get  into  a  better 
position  for  the  camera;  whereupon  it  jumped  out  of  the 
tree  and  ran  headlong  down  hill,  the  yelling  dogs  but  a 
few  feet  behind.  Our  horses  had  been  left  a  hundred 
yards  or  so  below,  where  they  all  stood,  moping,  with 
their  heads  drooped  and  their  eyes  half  shut,  in  regular 
cow-pony  style.  The  chase  streamed  by  not  a  yard  from 
their  noses,  but  evidently  failed  to  arouse  even  an  emotion 
of  interest  in  their  minds,  for  they  barely  looked  up,  and 
made  not  a  movement  of  any  kind  when  the  cougar  treed 
again  just  below  them. 

We  killed  several  bobcats;  and  we  also  got  another 
cougar,  this  time  in  rather  ignominious  fashion.  We 
had  been  running  a  bobcat,  having  an  excellent  gallop, 


44  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

during*  the  course  of  which  Stewart's  horse  turned  a 
somersault.  Without  our  knowledge  the  dogs  changed 
to  the  fresh  trail  of  a  cougar,  which  they  ran  into  its  den 
in  another  cut  bank.  When  we  reached  the  place  they 
had  gone  in  after  it,  Baldy  dropping  into  a  hole  at  the 
top  of  the  bank,  while  the  others  crawled  into  the  main 
entrance,  some  twenty-five  yards  off  at  the  bottom.  It 
was  evidently  a  very  rough  house  inside,  and  above  the 
baying,  yelping,  and  snarling  of  the  dogs  we  could  hear 
the  rumbling  overtone  of  the  cougar's  growl.  On  this 
day  we  had  taken  along  Queen,  the  white  bull  bitch,  to 
"  enter "  her  at  cougar.  It  was  certainly  a  lively  ex- 
perience for  a  first  entry.  We  reached  the  place  in  time 
to  keep  Jim  and  the  hound  bitches  out  of  the  hole.  It 
was  evident  that  the  dogs  could  do  nothing  with  the  cou- 
gar inside.  They  could  only  come  at  it  in  front,  and 
under  such  circumstances  its  claws  and  teeth  made  the 
odds  against  them  hopeless.  Every  now  and  then  it 
would  charge,  driving  them  all  back,  and  we  would  then 
reach  in,  seize  a  dog  and  haul  him  out.  At  intervals  there 
would  be  an  awful  yelling  and  a  hound  would  come  out 
bleeding  badly,  quite  satisfied,  and  without  the  slightest 
desire  to  go  in  again.  Poor  Baldy  was  evidently  killed 
inside.  Queen,  Turk,  and  Tony  were  badly  clawed  and 
bitten,  and  we  finally  got  them  out  too;  Queen  went  in 
three  times,  and  came  out  on  each  occasion  with  a  fresh 
gash  or  bite;  Turk  was,  at  the  last,  the  only  one  really 
anxious  to  go  in  again.  Then  we  tried  to  smoke  out 
the  cougar,  for  as  one  of  the  dogs  had  gotten  into  the 
cave  through  an  upper  entrance,  we  supposed  the  cougar 


"5 

i 

c/) 
H     OQ 

0  .& 

E  s 

w      x 

1  .o 
H     j= 

c, 

0^ 

u:       & 

<      I 


WITH   THE    COUGAR   HOUNDS         45 

could  get  out  by  the  same  route.  However,  it  either 
could  not  or  would  not  bolt;  coming  down  close  to  the 
entrance  where  we  had  built  the  sage-brush  fire,  there 
it  stayed  until  it  was  smothered.  We  returned  to  the 
ranch  carrying  its  skin,  but  not  over-pleased,  and  the 
pack  much  the  worse  for  wear.  Dr.  Webb  had  to  sew 
up  the  wounds  of  three  of  the  dogs.  One,  Tony,  was 
sent  back  to  the  home  ranch,  where  he  died.  In  such 
rough  hunting  as  this,  it  is  of  course  impossible  to  pre- 
vent occasional  injuries  to  the  dogs  when  they  get  the 
cougar  in  a  cave,  or  overtake  him  on  the  ground.  All 
that  can  be  done  is  to  try  to  end  the  contest  as  speedily 
as  possible,  which  we  always  did. 

Judging  from  the  experience  of  certain  friends  of 
mine  in  the  Argentine,  I  think  it  would  be  safe  to  crawl 
into  a  cave  to  shoot  a  cougar  under  normal  circumstances ; 
but  in  this  instance  the  cave  was  a  long,  winding  hole, 
so  low  that  we  could  not  get  in  on  hands  and  knees,  hav- 
ing to  work  our  way  on  our  elbows.  It  was  pitch  dark 
inside,  so  that  the  rifle  sights  could  not  be  seen,  and  the 
cougar  was  evidently  very  angry  and  had  on  two  or  three 
occasions  charged  the  dogs,  driving  them  out  of  the  en- 
trance of  the  hole.  In  the  dark,  the  chances  were  strongly 
against  killing  it  with  a  single  shot;  while  if  only 
wounded,  and  if  it  had  happened  to  charge,  the  man,  in 
his  cramped  position,  would  have  been  utterly  helpless. 

The  day  after  the  death  of  the  smoked-out  cougar 
Stewart  and  Webb  started  home.  Then  it  snowed  for  two 
days,  keeping  us  in  the  ranch.  While  the  snow  was  fall- 
ing, there  was  no  possibility  of  finding  or  following 


46  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

tracks;  and  as  a  rule  wild  creatures  lie  close  during  a 
storm.  We  were  glad  to  have  fresh  snow,  for  the  multi- 
tude of  tracks  in  the  old  snow  had  become  confusing;  and 
not  only  the  southern  hillsides  but  the  larger  valleys  had 
begun  to  grow  bare,  so  that  trailing  was  difficult. 

The  third  day  dawned  in  brilliant  splendor,  and  when 
the  sun  arose  all  the  land  glittered  dazzling  white  under 
his  rays.  The  hounds  were  rested,  we  had  fresh  horses, 
and  after  an  early  breakfast  we  started  to  make  a  long 
circle.  All  the  forenoon  and  early  afternoon  we  plodded 
through  the  snowdrifts,  up  and  down  the  valleys,  and 
along  the  ridge  crests,  without  striking  a  trail.  The  dogs 
trotted  behind  us  or  circled  from  one  side  to  the  other. 
It  was  no  small  test  of  their  stanchness,  eager  and  fresh 
as  they  were,  for  time  after  time  we  aroused  bands  of 
deer,  to  which  they  paid  no  heed  whatever.  At  last,  in 
mid-afternoon,  we  suddenly  struck  the  tracks  of  two 
cougars,  one  a  very  large  one,  an  old  male.  They  had 
been  playing  and  frolicking  together,  for  they  were  evi- 
dently mating,  and  the  snow  in  the  tracks  showed  that 
they  had  started  abroad  before  the  storm  was  entirely 
over.  For  three  hours  the  pack  followed  the  cold  trail, 
through  an  exceedingly  rugged  and  difficult  country,  in 
which  Goff  helped  them  out  again  and  again. 

Just  at  sunset  the  cougars  were  jumped,  and  ran 
straight  into  and  through  a  tangle  of  spurs  and  foothills, 
broken  by  precipices,  and  riven  by  long  deep  ravines. 
The  two  at  first  separated  and  then  came  together,  with 
the  result  that  Tree'em,  Bruno,  and  Jimmie  got  on  the 
back  trail  and  so  were  left  far  behind;  while  old  Boxer 


WITH    THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          47 

also  fell  to  the  rear,  as  he  always  did  when  the  scent  was 
hot,  and  Jim  and  the  bitches  were  left  to  do  the  running 
by  themselves.  In  the  gathering  gloom  we  galloped 
along  the  main  divide,  my  horse  once  falling  on  a  slip- 
pery sidehill,  as  I  followed  headlong  after  Goff — whose 
riding  was  like  the  driving  of  the  son  of  Nimshi.  The 
last  vestige  of  sunlight  disappeared,  but  the  full  moon 
was  well  up  in  the  heavens  when  we  came  to  a  long  spur, 
leading  off  to  the  right  for  two  or  three  miles,  beyond 
which  we  did  not  think  the  chase  could  have  gone.  It 
had  long  run  out  of  hearing.  Making  our  way  down  the 
rough  and  broken  crest  of  this  spur,  we  finally  heard 
far  off  the  clamorous  baying  which  told  us  that  the 
hounds  had  their  quarry  at  bay.  We  did  not  have  the 
fighters  with  us,  as  they  were  still  under  the  weather  from 
the  results  of  their  encounter  in  the  cave. 

As  it  afterward  appeared,  the  cougars  had  run  three 
miles  before  the  dogs  overtook  them,  making  their  way 
up,  down  and  along  such  difficult  cliffs  that  the  pack  had 
to  keep  going  round.  The  female  then  went  up  a  tree, 
while  the  pack  followed  the  male.  He  would  not  climb  a 
tree  and  came  to  bay  on  the  edge  of  a  cliff.  A  couple  of 
hundred  yards  from  the  spot,  we  left  the  horses  and 
scrambled  along  on  foot,  guided  by  the  furious  clamor 
of  the  pack.  When  we  reached  them,  the  cougar  had 
gone  along  the  face  of  the  cliff,  most  of  the  dogs  could 
not  see  him,  and  it  was  some  time  before  we  could  make 
him  out  ourselves.  Then  I  got  up  quite  close.  Although 
the  moonlight  was  bright  I  could  not  see  the  sights  of 
my  rifle,  and  fired  a  little  too  far  back.  The  bullet,  how- 


48  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ever,  inflicted  a  bad  wound,  and  the  cougar  ran  along  a 
ledge,  disappearing  around  the  cliff  shoulder.  The  con- 
duct of  the  dogs  showed  that  he  had  not  left  the  cliff,  but 
it  was  impossible  to  see  him  either  from  the  sides  or  from 
below.  The  cliff  was  about  a  hundred  feet  high  and  the 
top  overhung  the  bottom,  while  from  above  the  ground 
sloped  down  to  the  brink  at  a  rather  steep  angle,  so  that 
we  had  to  be  cautious  about  our  footing.  There  was  a 
large  projecting  rock  on  the  brink;  to  this  I  clambered 
down,  and,  holding  it  with  one  hand,  peeped  over  the 
edge.  After  a  minute  or  two  I  made  out  first  the  tail  and 
then  the  head  of  the  cougar,  who  was  lying  on  a  narrow 
ledge  only  some  ten  feet  below  me,  his  body  hidden 
by  the  overhang  of  the  cliff.  Thanks  to  the  steepness 
of  the  incline,  I  could  not  let  go  of  the  rock  with  my 
left  hand,  because  I  should  have  rolled  over;  so  I  got 
Goff  to  come  down,  brace  his  feet  against  the  projection, 
and  grasp  me  by  my  legs.  He  then  lowered  me  gently 
down  until  my  head  and  shoulders  were  over  the  edge 
and  my  arms  free;  and  I  shot  the  cougar  right  between 
the  ears,  he  being  in  a  straight  line  underneath  me.  The 
dogs  were  evidently  confident  that  he  was  going  to  be 
shot,  for  they  had  all  gathered  below  the  cliff  to  wait  for 
him  to  fall ;  and  sure  enough,  down  he  came  with  a  crash, 
luckily  not  hitting  any  of  them.  We  could  hear  them 
seize  him,  and  they  all,  dead  cougar  and  worrying  dogs, 
rolled  at  least  a  hundred  yards  down  the  steep  slope  be- 
fore they  were  stopped  by  a  gully.  It  was  an  interest- 
ing experience,  and  one  which  I  shall  not  soon  forget. 
We  clambered  down  to  where  the  dogs  were,  admired 


WITH    THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          49 

our  victim,  and  made  up  our  minds  not  to  try  to  skin  him 
until  the  morning.  Then  we  led  down  our  horses,  with 
some  difficulty,  into  the  snow-covered  valley,  mounted 
them,  and  cantered  home  to  the  ranch,  under  the  cold  and 
brilliant  moon,  through  a  white  wonderland  of  shimmer- 
ing light  and  beauty. 

Next  morning  we  came  back  as  early  as  possible,  in- 
tending first  to  skin  the  male  and  then  to  hunt  up  the 
female.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  before  we  reached  the  car- 
cass we  struck  her  fresh  trail  in  the  snow  of  the  valley. 
Calling  all  the  dogs  together  and  hustling  them  for- 
ward, we  got  them  across  the  trail  without  their  paying 
any  attention  to  it;  for  we  wanted  to  finish  the  job  of 
skinning  before  taking  up  the  hunt.  However,  when  we 
got  off  our  horses  and  pulled  the  cougar  down  to  a  flat 
place  to  skin  it,  Nellie,  who  evidently  remembered  that 
there  had  been  another  cougar  besides  the  one  we  had 
accounted  for,  started  away  on  her  own  account  while 
we  were  not  looking.  The  first  thing  we  knew  we  heard 
her  giving  tongue  on  the  mountains  above  us,  in  such 
rough  country  that  there  was  no  use  in  trying  to  head  her 
off.  Accordingly  we  jumped  on  the  horses  again,  rode 
down  to  where  we  had  crossed  the  trail  and  put  the 
whole  pack  on  it.  After  crossing  the  valley  the  cougar 
had  moved  along  the  ledges  of  a  great  spur  or  chain  of 
foothills,  and  as  this  prevented  the  dogs  going  too  fast 
we  were  able  to  canter  alongside  them  up  the  valley, 
watching  them  and  listening  to  their  chiming.  We 
finally  came  to  a  large  hillside  bare  of  snow,  much  broken 
with  rocks,  among  which  grew  patches  of  brush  and  scat- 


50  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

tered  pinyons.  Here  the  dogs  were  at  fault  for  over  an 
hour.  It  had  evidently  been  a  favorite  haunt  of  the  cou- 
gars; they  had  moved  to  and  fro  across  it,  and  had  lain 
sunning  themselves  in  the  dust  under  the  ledges.  Owing 
to  the  character  of  the  ground  we  could  give  the  hounds 
no  assistance,  but  they  finally  puzzled  out  the  trail  for 
themselves.  We  were  now  given  a  good  illustration  of 
the  impossibility  of  jumping  a  cougar  without  dogs,  even 
when  in  a  general  way  its  haunt  is  known.  We  rode 
along  the  hillside,  and  quartered  it  to  and  fro,  on  the 
last  occasion  coming  down  a  spur  where  we  passed  within 
two  or  three  rods  of  the  brush  in  which  the  cougar  was 
actually  lying;  but  she  never  moved  and  it  was  impos- 
sible to  see  her.  When  we  finally  reached  the  bottom, 
the  dogs  had  disentangled  the  trail;  and  they  passed  be- 
hind us  at  a  good  rate,  going  up  almost  where  we  had 
come  down.  Even  as  we  looked  we  saw  the  cougar  rise 
from  her  lair,  only  fifty  yards  or  so  ahead  of  them,  her 
red  hide  showing  bright  in  the  sun.  It  was  a  very  pretty 
run  to  watch  while  it  lasted.  She  left  them  behind  at 
first,  but  after  a  quarter  of  a  mile  they  put  her  up  a  pin- 
yon.  Approaching  cautiously — for  the  climbing  was 
hard  work  and  I  did  not  wish  to  frighten  her  out  of  the 
tree  if  it  could  be  avoided,  lest  she  might  make  such  a 
run  as  that  of  the  preceding  evening — I  was  able  to  shoot 
her  through  the  heart.  She  died  in  the  branches,  and 
I  climbed  the  tree  to  throw  her  down.  The  only  skill 
needed  in  such  shooting  is  in  killing  the  cougar  outright 
so  as  to  save  the  dogs.  Six  times  on  the  hunt  I  shot  the 
cougar  through  the  heart.  Twice  the  animal  died  in 


UJ       OQ 


8  1 

r3 


WITH   THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          51 

the  branches.  In  the  other  four  cases  it  sprang  out  of 
the  tree,  head  and  tail  erect,  eyes  blazing,  and  the  mouth 
open  in  a  grin  of  savage  hate  and  anger;  but  it  was  prac- 
tically dead  when  it  touched  the  ground. 

Although  these  cougars  were  mates,  they  were  not  of 
the  same  color,  the  female  being  reddish,  while  the  male 
was  slate-colored.  In  weighing  this  male  we  had  to 
take  off  the  hide  and  weigh  it  separately  (with  the  head 
and  paws  attached),  for  our  steelyard  only  went  up  to 
150  pounds.  When  we  came  to  weigh  the  biggest  male 
we  had  to  take  off  the  quarters  as  vsell  as  the  hide. 

Thinking  that  we  had  probably  exhausted  the  cougars 
around  the  Keystone  Ranch,  we  spent  the  next  fortnight 
off  on  a  trip.  We  carried  only  what  we  could  put  in 
the  small  saddle-pockets — our  baggage  being  as  strictly 
limited  as  it  ought  to  be  with  efficient  cavalry  who  are 
on  an  active  campaign.  We  worked  hard,  but,  as  so  often 
happens,  our  luck  was  not  in  proportion  to  our  labor. 

The  first  day  we  rode  to  the  Mathes  brothers'  ranch. 
On  the  high  divides  it  was  very  cold,  the  thermometer 
standing  at  nearly  twenty  degrees  below  zero.  But  we 
were  clad  for  just  such  weather,  and  were  not  uncom- 
fortable. The  three  Mathes  brothers  lived  together,  with 
the  wives  and  children  of  the  two  married  ones.  Their 
ranch  was  in  a  very  beautiful  and  wild  valley,  the  pinyon- 
crowned  cliffs  rising  in  walls  on  either  hand.  Deer  were 
abundant  and  often  in  sight  from  the  ranch  doors.  At 
night  the  gray  wolves  came  down  close  to  the  buildings 
and  howled  for  hours  among  the  precipices,  under  the 
light  of  the  full  moon.  The  still  cold  was  intense;  but 


52  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

I  could  not  resist  going  out  for  half  an  hour  at  a  time 
to  listen  to  them.  To  me  their  baying,  though  a  very 
eerie  and  lonesome  sound,  full  of  vaguely  sinister  associa- 
tions, has,  nevertheless,  a  certain  wild  music  of  its  own 
which  is  far  from  being  without  charm. 

We  did  not  hear  the  cougars  calling,  for  they  are  cer- 
tainly nothing  like  as  noisy  as  wolves;  yet  the  Mathes 
brothers  had  heard  them  several  times,  and  once  one  of 
them  had  crept  up  and  seen  the  cougar,  which  remained 
in  the  same  place  for  many  minutes,  repeating  its  cry 
continually.  The  Mathes  had  killed  but  two  cougars, 
not  having  any  dogs  trained  to  hunt  them.  One  of  these 
was  killed  under  circumstances  which  well  illustrate  the 
queer  nature  of  the  animal.  The  three  men,  with  one  of 
their  two  cattle  dogs,  were  walking  up  the  valley  not  half 
a  mile  above  the  ranch  house,  when  they  saw  a  cougar 
crossing  in  front  of  them,  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  off. 
As  soon  as  she  saw  them  she  crouched  flat  down  with 
her  head  toward  them,  remaining  motionless.  Two,  with 
the  dog,  stayed  where  they  were,  while  the  other  ran 
back  to  the  ranch  house  for  a  rifle  and  for  the  other  dog. 
No  sooner  had  he  gone  than  the  cougar  began  deliber- 
ately to  crawl  toward  the  men  who  were  left.  She  came 
on  slowly  but  steadily,  crouched  almost  flat  to  the  ground. 
The  two  unarmed  men  were  by  no  means  pleased  with 
her  approach.  They  waved  their  hands  and  jumped 
about  and  shouted;  but  she  kept  approaching,  although 
slowly,  and  was  well  within  a  hundred  yards  when  the 
other  brother  arrived,  out  of  breath,  accompanied  by  the 
other  dog.  At  sight  of  him  she  jumped  up,  ran  off  a 


WITH   THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS         53 

couple  of  hundred  yards,  went  up  a  tree,  and  was  killed. 
I  do  not  suppose  she  would  have  attacked  the  men;  but 
as  there  was  an  unpleasant  possibility  that  she  might,  they 
both  felt  distinctly  more  comfortable  when  their  brother 
rejoined  them  with  the  rifle. 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  snowy  weather  while  we 
were  at  the  Mathes  ranch,  but  we  had  fair  luck,  kill- 
ing two  cougars.  It  was  most  comfortable,  for  the  ranch 
was  clean  and  warm,  and  the  cooking  delicious.  It  does 
not  seem  to  me  that  I  ever  tasted  better  milk  and  butter, 
hot  biscuits,  rice,  potatoes,  pork  and  bulberry  and  wild- 
plum  jam ;  and  of  course  the  long  days  on  horseback  in  the 
cold  weather  gave  an  edge  to  our  appetites.  One  stormy 
day  we  lost  the  hounds,  and  we  spent  most  of  the  next  day 
in  finding  such  of  them  as  did  not  come  straggling  in  of 
their  own  accord.  The  country  was  very  rough,  and  it 
was  astounding  to  see  some  of  the  places  up  and  down 
which  we  led  the  horses.  Sometimes  I  found  that  my 
horse  climbed  rather  better  than  I  did,  for  he  would  come 
up  some  awkward-looking  slope  with  such  a  rush  that  I 
literally  had  to  scramble  on  all-fours  to  get  out  of  his 
way. 

There  was  no  special  incident  connected  with  killing 
either  of  these  two  cougars.  In  one  case  Goff  himself 
took  the  lead  in  working  out  the  trail  and  preventing  the 
hounds  getting  off  after  bobcats.  In  the  other  case  the 
trail  was  fresher  and  the  dogs  ran  it  by  themselves,  get- 
ting into  a  country  where  we  could  not  follow;  it  was 
very  rough,  and  the  cliffs  and  gorges  rang  with  their 
baying.  In  both  cases  they  had  the  cougar  treed  for  about 


54  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

three  hours  before  we  were  able  to  place  them  and  walk 
up  to  them.  It  was  hard  work,  toiling  through  the  snow 
over  the  cliffs  toward  the  baying;  and  on  each  occasion 
the  cougar  leaped  from  the  tree  at  our  approach,  and  ran 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  or  so  before  going  up  another,  where 
it  was  shot.  As  I  came  up  to  shoot,  most  of  the  dogs  paid 
no  attention,  but  Boxer  and  Nellie  always  kept  looking 
at  me  until  I  actually  raised  the  rifle,  when  they  began 
to  spring  about  the  spot  where  they  thought  the  cougar 
would  come  down.  The  cougar  itself  always  seemed 
to  recognize  the  man  as  the  dangerous  opponent;  and  as 
I  strode  around  to  find  a  place  from  whence  I  could 
deliver  an  instantaneously  fatal  shot,  it  would  follow  me 
steadily  with  its  evil  yellow  eyes.  I  came  up  very  close, 
but  the  beasts  never  attempted  to  jump  at  me.  Judging 
from  what  one  reads  in  books  about  Indian  and  Afri- 
can game,  a  leopard  under  such  circumstances  would  cer- 
tainly sometimes  charge. 

Three  days  of  our  trip  were  spent  on  a  ride  to  Colo- 
row  Mountain;  we  went  down  to  Judge  Foreman's  ranch 
on  White  River  to  pass  the  night.  We  got  another  cou- 
gar on  the  way.  She  must  really  be  credited  to  Jim.  The 
other  dogs  were  following  in  our  footsteps  through  the 
snow,  after  having  made  various  futile  excursions  of  their 
own.  When  we  found  that  Jim  was  missing,  we  tried  in 
vain  to  recall  him  with  the  horn,  and  at  last  started  to 
hunt  him  up.  After  an  hour's  ride  we  heard  him  off  on 
the  mountain,  evidently  following  a  trail,  but  equally 
evidently  not  yet  having  jumped  the  animal.  The  hounds 
heard  him  quite  as  quickly  as  we  did,  and  started  toward 


WITH    THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS         55 

him.  Soon  we  heard  the  music  of  the  whole  pack,  which 
grew  fainter  and  fainter,  and  was  lost  entirely  as  they 
disappeared  around  a  spur,  and  then  began  to  grow  loud 
again,  showing  that  they  were  coming  toward  us.  Sud- 
denly a  change  in  the  note  convinced  us  that  they  had 
jumped  the  quarry.  We  stood  motionless;  nearer  and 
nearer  they  came;  and  then  a  sudden  burst  of  clamor  pro- 
claimed that  they  were  barking  treed.  We  had  to  ride 
only  a  couple  of  hundred  yards;  I  shot  the  cougar  from 
across  a  little  ravine.  She  was  the  largest  female  we  got. 

The  dogs  were  a  source  of  unceasing  amusement,  not 
merely  while  hunting,  but  because  of  their  relations  to 
one  another  when  off  duty.  Queen's  temper  was  of  the 
shortest  toward  the  rest  of  the  pack,  although,  like  Turk, 
she  was  fond  of  literally  crawling  into  my  lap,  when  we 
sat  down  to  rest  after  the  worry  which  closed  the  chase. 
As  soon  as  I  began  to  eat  my  lunch,  all  the  dogs  clustered 
close  around  and  I  distributed  small  morsels  to  each  in 
turn.  Once  Jimmie,  Queen,  and  Boxer  were  sitting  side 
by  side,  tightly  wedged  together.  I  treated  them  with 
entire  impartiality;  and  soon  Queen's  feelings  overcame 
her,  and  she  unostentatiously  but  firmly  bit  Jimmie  in  the 
jaw.  Jimmie  howled  tremendously  and  Boxer  literally 
turned  a  back  somersault,  evidently  fearing  lest  his  turn 
should  come  next. 

On  February  nth  we  rode  back  to  the  Keystone 
Ranch,  carrying  the  three  cougar  skins  behind  our  saddles. 
It  was  again  very  cold,  and  the  snow  on  the  divides  was 
so  deep  that  our  horses  wallowed  through  it  up  to  their 
saddle-girths.  I  supposed  that  my  hunt  was  practically 


56  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

at  an  end,  for  I  had  but  three  days  left;  but  as  it  turned 
out  these  were  the  three  most  lucky  days  of  the  whole 
trip. 

The  weather  was  beautiful,  the  snow  lying  deep 
enough  to  give  the  dogs  easy  trailing  even  on  the  southern 
slopes.  Under  the  clear  skies  the  landscape  was  daz- 
zling, and  I  had  to  wear  snow-glasses.  On  the  first  of  the 
three  days,  February  izth,  we  had  not  ridden  half  an 
hour  from  the  ranch  before  we  came  across  the  trail  of 
a  very  big  bobcat.  It  was  so  heavy  that  it  had  broken 
through  the  crust  here  and  there,  and  we  decided  that 
it  was  worth  following.  The  trail  went  up  a  steep  moun- 
tain to  the  top,  and  we  followed  on  foot  after  the  dogs. 
Among  the  cliffs  on  the  top  they  were  completely  at  fault, 
hunting  every  which  way.  After  awhile  Goff  suddenly 
spied  the  cat,  which  had  jumped  off  the  top  of  a  cliff  into 
a  pinyon.  I  killed  it  before  any  of  the  dogs  saw  it,  and 
at  the  shot  they  all  ran  in  the  wrong  direction.  When 
they  did  find  us  skinning  it,  they  were  evidently  not  at 
all  satisfied  that  it  was  really  their  bobcat — the  one  which 
they  had  been  trailing.  Usually  as  soon  as  the  animal 
was  killed  they  all  lay  down  and  dozed  off;  but  on  this 
occasion  they  kept  hurrying  about  and  then  in  a  body 
started  on  the  back  trail.  It  was  some  time  before  we 
could  get  them  together  again. 

After  we  had  brought  them  in  we  rode  across  one  or 
two  ridges,  and  up  and  down  the  spurs  without  finding 
anything,  until  about  noon  we  struck  up  a  long  winding 
valley  where  we  came  across  one  or  two  old  cougar  trails. 
The  pack  were  following  in  our  footsteps  behind  the 


WITH    THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          57 

horses,  except  Jim,  who  took  off  to  one  side  by  himself. 
Suddenly  he  began  to  show  signs  that  he  had  come  across 
traces  of  game;  and  in  another  moment  he  gave  tongue 
and  all  the  hounds  started  toward  him.  They  quartered 
around  in  the  neighborhood  of  a  little  gulch  for  a  short 
while,  and  then  streamed  off  up  the  mountain-side ;  and 
before  they  had  run  more  than  a  couple  of  minutes  we 
heard  them  barking  treed.  By  making  a  slight  turn  we 
rode  almost  up  to  the  tree,  and  saw  that  their  quarry  was 
a  young  cougar.  As  we  came  up,  it  knocked  Jimmie 
right  out  of  the  tree.  On  seeing  us  it  jumped  down  and 
started  to  run,  but  it  was  not  quite  quick  enough.  Turk 
seized  it  and  in  a  minute  the  dogs  had  it  stretched  out.  It 
squawled,  hissed,  and  made  such  a  good  fight  that  I  put 
an  end  to  the  struggle  with  the  knife,  fearing  lest  it  might 
maim  one  of  the  hounds. 

While  GofT  was  skinning  it  I  wandered  down  to  the 
kill  near  which  it  had  been  lying.  This  was  a  deer,  al- 
most completely  devoured.  It  had  been  killed  in  the  val- 
ley and  dragged  up  perhaps  a  hundred  yards  to  some 
cedars.  I  soon  saw  from  the  tracks  around  the  carcass 
that  there  was  an  older  cougar  with  the  younger  one — 
doubtless  its  mother — and  walked  back  to  GofT  with  the 
information.  Before  I  got  there,  however,  some  of  the 
pack  had  made  the  discovery  for  themselves.  Jim,  evi- 
dently feeling  that  he  had  done  his  duty,  had  curled  up 
and  gone  to  sleep,  with  most  of  the  others ;  but  old  Boxer 
and  the  three  bitches  (Pete  had  left  her  pups  and  joined 
us  about  the  time  we  roused  the  big  bobcat) ,  hunted  about 
until  they  struck  the  fresh  trail  of  the  old  female.  They 


58  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

went  off  at  a  great  rate,  and  the  sleeping  dogs  heard  them 
and  scampered  away  to  the  sound.  The  trail  led  them 
across  a  spur,  into  a  valley,  and  out  of  it  up  the  precipi- 
tous side  of  another  mountain.  When  we  got  to  the  edge 
of  the  valley  we  could  hear  them  barking  treed  nearly 
at  the  summit  of  the  mountain  opposite.  It  was  over  an 
hour's  stiff  climbing  before  we  made  our  way  around  to 
them,  although  we  managed  to  get  the  horses  up  to  within 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  spot.  On  approaching  we  found 
the  cougar  in  a  leaning  pinyon  on  a  ledge  at  the  foot  of 
a  cliff.  Jimmie  was  in  the  lower  branches  of  the  pinyon, 
and  Turk  up  above  him,  within  a  few  feet  of  the  cougar. 
Evidently  he  had  been  trying  to  tackle  her  and  had  been 
knocked  out  of  the  tree  at  least  once,  for  he  was  bleed- 
ing a  good  deal  and  there  was  much  blood  on  the  snow 
beneath.  Yet  he  had  come  back  into  the  tree,  and  was 
barking  violently  not  more  than  three  feet  beyond  her 
stroke.  She  kept  up  a  low  savage  growling,  and  as  soon 
as  I  appeared,  fixed  her  yellow  eyes  on  me,  glaring  and 
snarling  as  I  worked  around  into  a  place  from  which 
I  could  kill  her  outright.  Meanwhile  Goff  took  up  his 
position  on  the  other  side,  hoping  to  get  a  photograph 
when  I  shot.  My  bullet  went  right  through  her  heart. 
She  bit  her  paw,  stretched  up  her  head  and  bit  a  branch, 
and  then  died  where  she  was,  while  Turk  leaped  forward 
at  the  crack  of  the  rifle  and  seized  her  in  the  branches. 
I  had  some  difficulty  in  bundling  him  and  Jimmie  out  of 
the  tree  as  I  climbed  up  to  throw  down  the  cougar. 

Next  morning  we  started  early,  intending  to  go  to 
Juniper  Mountain,  where  we  had  heard  that  cougars 


WITH   THE   COUGAR    HOUNDS         59 

were  plentiful;  but  we  had  only  ridden  about  half  an 
hour  from  the  ranch  when  we  came  across  a  trail  which 
by  the  size  we  knew  must  belong  to  an  old  male.  It  was 
about  thirty-six  hours  old  and  led  into  a  tangle  of  bad 
lands  where  there  was  great  difficulty  in  working  it 
out.  Finally,  however,  we  found  where  it  left  these  bad 
lands  and  went  straight  up  a  mountain-side,  too  steep  for 
the  horses  to  follow.  From  the  plains  below  we  watched 
the  hounds  working  to  and  fro  until  they  entered  a  patch 
of  pinyons  in  which  we  were  certain  the  cougar  had 
killed  a  deer,  as  ravens  and  magpies  were  sitting  around 
in  the  trees.  In  these  pinyons  the  hounds  were  again  at 
fault  for  a  little  while,  but  at  last  evidently  found  the 
right  trail,  and  followed  it  up  over  the  hill-crest  and  out 
of  sight.  We  then  galloped  hard  along  the  plain  to  the 
left,  going  around  the  end  of  the  ridge  and  turning  to 
our  right  on  the  other  side.  Here  we  entered  a  deep 
narrow  valley  or  gorge  which  led  up  to  a  high  plateau 
at  the  farther  end.  On  our  right,  as  we  rode  up  the 
valley,  lay  the  high  and  steep  ridge  over  which  the  hounds 
had  followed  the  trail.  On  the  left  it  was  still  steeper, 
the  slope  being  broken  by  ledges  and  precipices.  Near 
the  mouth  of  the  gorge  we  encountered  the  hounds,  who 
had  worked  the  trail  down  and  across  the  gorge,  and  were 
now  hunting  up  the  steep  cliff-shoulder  on  our  left.  Evi- 
dently the  cougar  had  wandered  to  and  fro  over  this 
shoulder,  and  the  dogs  were  much  puzzled  and  worked 
in  zigzags  and  circles  around  it,  gradually  getting  clear 
to  the  top.  Then  old  Boxer  suddenly  gave  tongue  with 
renewed  zest  and  started  off  at  a  run  almost  on  top  of 


60  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  ridge,  the  other  dogs  following.    Immediately  after- 
ward they  jumped  the  cougar. 

We  had  been  waiting  below  to  see  which  direction  the 
chase  would  take  and  now  put  spurs  to  our  horses  and 
galloped  up  the  ravine,  climbing  the  hillside  on  our  right 
so  as  to  get  a  better  view  of  what  was  happening.  A  few 
hundred  yards  of  this  galloping  and  climbing  brought  us 
again  in  sight  of  the  hounds.  They  were  now  barking 
treed  and  were  clustered  around  a  pinyon  below  the  ridge 
crest  on  the  side  hill  opposite  us.  The  two  fighters,  Turk 
and  Queen,  who  had  been  following  at  our  horses'  heels, 
appreciated  what  had  happened  as  soon  as  we  did,  and, 
leaving  us,  ran  down  into  the  valley  and  began  to  work 
their  way  through  the  deep  snow  up  the  hillside  opposite, 
toward  where  the  hounds  were.  Ours  was  an  ideal  posi- 
tion for  seeing  the  whole  chase.  In  a  minute  the  cougar 
jumped  out  of  the  tree  down  among  the  hounds,  who 
made  no  attempt  to  seize  him,  but  followed  him  as  soon 
as  he  had  cleared  their  circle.  He  came  down  hill  at  a 
great  rate  and  jumped  over  a  low  cliff,  bringing  after 
him  such  an  avalanche  of  snow  that  it  was  a  moment 
before  I  caught  sight  of  him  again,  this  time  crouched 
on  a  narrow  ledge  some  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  below 
the  brink  from  which  he  had  jumped,  and  about  as  far 
above  the  foot  of  the  cliff,  where  the  steep  hill-slope 
again  began.  The  hounds  soon  found  him  and  came 
along  the  ledge  barking  loudly,  but  not  venturing  near 
where  he  lay  facing  them,  with  his  back  arched  like 
a  great  cat.  Turk  and  Queen  were  meanwhile  working 
their  way  up  hill.  Turk  got  directly  under  the  ledge 


WITH   THE   COUGAR   HOUNDS         61 

and  could  not  find  a  way  up.  Queen  went  to  the  left  and 
in  a  minute  we  saw  her  white  form  as  she  made  her  way 
through  the  dark-colored  hounds  straight  for  the  cougar. 
"That's  the  end  of  Queen,"  said  Goff;  "he'll  kill  her 
now,  sure."  In  another  moment  she  had  made  her  rush 
and  the  cougar,  bounding  forward,  had  seized  her,  and 
as  we  afterward  discovered  had  driven  his  great  fangs 
right  through  the  side  of  her  head,  fortunately  missing 
the  brain.  In  the  struggle  he  lost  his  footing  and  rolled 
off  the  ledge,  and  when  they  struck  the  ground  below  he 
let  go  of  the  bitch.  Turk,  who  was  near  where  they 
struck,  was  not  able  to  spring  for  the  hold  he  desired,  and 
in  another  moment  the  cougar  was  coming  down  hill  like 
a  quarter  horse.  We  stayed  perfectly  still,  as  he  was 
travelling  in  our  direction.  Queen  was  on  her  feet  al- 
most as  quick  as  the  cougar,  and  she  and  Turk  tore  after 
him,  the  hounds  following  in  a  few  seconds,  being  de- 
layed in  getting  off  the  ledge.  It  was  astonishing  to  see 
the  speed  of  the  cougar.  He  ran  considerably  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  down  hill,  and  at  the  end  of  it  had 
left  the  dogs  more  than  a  hundred  yards  behind.  But  his 
bolt  was  shot,  and  after  going  perhaps  a  hundred  yards 
or  so  up  the  hill  on  our  side  and  below  us,  he  climbed 
a  tree,  under  which  the  dogs  began  to  bay  frantically, 
while  we  scrambled  toward  them.  When  I  got  down  I 
found  him  standing  half  upright  on  a  big  branch,  his 
forepaws  hung  over  another  higher  branch,  his  sides  puff- 
ing like  bellows,  and  evidently  completely  winded.  In 
scrambling  up  the  pinyon  he  must  have  struck  a  patch 
of  resin,  for  it  had  torn  a  handful  of  hair  off  from  behind 


62  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

his  right  forearm.  I  shot  him  through  the  heart.  At  the 
shot  he  sprang  clean  into  the  top  of  the  tree,  head  and 
tail  up,  and  his  face  fairly  demoniac  with  rage;  but  be- 
fore he  touched  the  ground  he  was  dead.  Turk  jumped 
up,  seized  him  as  he  fell,  and  the  two  rolled  over  a  low 
ledge,  falling  about  eight  feet  into  the  snow,  Turk  never 
losing  his  hold. 

No  one  could  have  wished  to  see  a  prettier  chase  un- 
der better  circumstances.  It  was  exceedingly  interesting. 
The  only  dog  hurt  was  Queen,  and  very  miserable  indeed 
she  looked.  She  stood  in  the  trail,  refusing  to  lie  down 
or  to  join  the  other  dogs,  as,  with  prodigious  snarls  at  one 
another,  they  ate  the  pieces  of  the  carcass  we  cut  out  for 
them.  Dogs  hunting  every  day,  as  these  were  doing,  and 
going  through  such  terrific  exertion,  need  enormous 
quantities  of  meat,  and  as  old  horses  and  crippled  steers 
were  not  always  easy  to  get,  we  usually  fed  them  the  cou- 
gar carcasses.  On  this  occasion,  when  they  had  eaten 
until  they  could  eat  no  longer,  I  gave  most  of  my  lunch  to 
Queen — Boxer,  who  after  his  feast  could  hardly  move, 
nevertheless  waddling  up  with  his  ears  forward  to  beg 
a  share.  Queen  evidently  felt  that  the  lunch  was  a  deli- 
cacy, for  she  ate  it,  and  then  trotted  home  behind  us  with 
the  rest  of  the  dogs.  Rather  to  my  astonishment,  next 
day  she  was  all  right,  and  as  eager  to  go  with  us  as  ever. 
Though  one  side  of  her  head  was  much  swollen,  in  her 
work  she  showed  no  signs  of  her  injuries. 

Early  the  following  morning,  February  I4th,  the  last 
day  of  my  actual  hunting,  we  again  started  for  Juniper 
Mountain,  following  the  same  course  on  which  we  had 


WITH   THE    COUGAR   HOUNDS         63 

started  the  previous  day.  Before  we  had  gone  a  mile, 
that  is,  only  about  half-way  to  where  we  had  come  across 
the  cougar  track  the  preceding  day,  we  crossed  another, 
and  as  we  deemed  a  fresher,  trail,  which  Goff  pronounced 
to  belong  to  a  cougar  even  larger  than  the  one  we  had 
just  killed.  The  hounds  were  getting  both  weary  and 
footsore,  but  the  scent  put  heart  into  them  and  away  they 
streamed.  They  followed  it  across  a  sage-brush  flat,  and 
then  worked  along  under  the  base  of  a  line  of  cliffs — cou- 
gar being  particularly  apt  thus  to  travel  at  the  foot  of 
cliffs.  The  pack  kept  well  together,  and  it  was  pleasant, 
as  we  cantered  over  the  snowy  plain  beside  them,  to  lis- 
ten to  their  baying,  echoed  back  from  the  cliffs  above. 
Then  they  worked  over  the  hill  and  we  spurred  ahead 
and  turned  to  the  left,  up  the  same  gorge  or  valley  in 
which  we  had  killed  the  cougar  the  day  before.  The 
hounds  followed  the  trail  straight  to  the  cliff-shoulder 
where  the  day  before  the  pack  had  been  puzzled  until 
Boxer  struck  the  fresh  scent.  Here  they  seemed  to  be 
completely  at  fault,  circling  everywhere,  and  at  one  time 
following  their  track  of  yesterday  over  to  the  pinyon-tree 
up  which  the  cougar  had  first  gone. 

We  made  our  way  up  the  ravine  to  the  head  of  the 
plateau,  and  then,  turning,  came  back  along  the  ridge 
until  we  reached  the  top  of  the  shoulder  where  the  dogs 
had  been;  but  when  we  got  there  they  had  disappeared. 
It  did  not  seem  likely  that  the  cougar  had  crossed  the 
ravine  behind  us — although  as  a  matter  of  fact  this  was 
exactly  what  had  happened — and  we  did  not  know  what 
to  make  of  the  affair. 


64  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

We  could  barely  hear  the  hounds;  they  had  followed 
their  back  trail  of  the  preceding  day,  toward  the  place 
where  we  had  first  come  across  the  tracks  of  the  cougar 
we  had  already  killed.  We  were  utterly  puzzled,  even 
Goff  being  completely  at  fault,  and  we  finally  became 
afraid  that  the  track  which  the  pack  had  been  running 
was  one  which,  instead  of  having  been  made  during  the 
night,  had  been  there  the  previous  morning,  and  had  been 
made  by  the  dead  cougar.  This  meant,  of  course,  that 
we  had  passed  it  without  noticing  it,  both  going  and  com- 
ing, on  the  previous  day,  and  knowing  GofFs  eye  for  a 
track  I  could  not  believe  this.  He,  however,  thought  we 
might  have  confused  it  with  some  of  the  big  wolf  tracks, 
of  which  a  number  had  crossed  our  path.  After  some 
hesitation,  he  said  that  at  any  rate  we  could  find  out  the 
truth  by  getting  back  into  the  flat  and  galloping  around 
to  where  we  had  begun  our  hunt  the  day  before;  because 
if  the  dogs  really  had  a  fresh  cougar  before  them  he  must 
have  so  short  a  start  that  they  were  certain  to  tree  him 
by  the  time  they  got  across  the  ridge-crest.  Accordingly 
we  scrambled  down  the  precipitous  mountain-side,  gal- 
loped along  the  flat  around  the  end  of  the  ridge  and  drew 
rein  at  about  the  place  where  we  had  first  come  across 
the  cougar  trail  on  the  previous  day.  Not  a  dog  was  to 
be  heard  anywhere,  and  GofFs  belief  that  the  pack  was 
simply  running  a  back  track  became  a  certainty  both  in 
his  mind  and  mine,  when  Jim  suddenly  joined  us,  evi- 
dently having  given  up  the  chase.  We  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  Jim,  being  wiser  than  the  other  dogs,  had 
discovered  his  mistake  while  they  had  not;  "  he  just  nat- 
urally quit,"  said  Goff. 


WITH    THE    COUGAR    HOUNDS          65 

After  some  little  work  we  found  where  the  pack  had 
crossed  the  broad  flat  valley  into  a  mass  of  very  rough 
broken  country,  the  same  in  which  I  had  shot  my  first 
big  male  by  moonlight.  Cantering  and  scrambling 
through  this  stretch  of  cliffs  and  valleys,  we  began  to  hear 
the  dogs,  and  at  first  were  puzzled  because  once  or  twice 
it  seemed  as  though  they  were  barking  treed  or  had  some- 
thing at  bay;  always,  however,  as  we  came  nearer  we 
could  again  hear  them  running  a  trail,  and  when  we 
finally  got  up  tolerably  close  we  found  that  they  were  all 
scattered  out.  Boxer  was  far  behind,  and  Nellie,  whose 
feet  had  become  sore,  was  soberly  accompanying  him,  no 
longer  giving  tongue.  The  others  were  separated  one 
from  the  other,  and  we  finally  made  out  Tree'em  all  by 
himself,  and  not  very  far  away.  In  vain  Goff  called  and 
blew  his  horn;  Tree'em  disappeared  up  a  high  hillside, 
and  with  muttered  comments  on  his  stupidity  we  gal- 
loped our  horses  along  the  valley  around  the  foot  of  the 
hill,  hoping  to  intercept  him.  No  sooner  had  we  come 
to  the  other  side,  however,  than  we  heard  Tree'em  evi- 
dently barking  treed.  We  looked  at  one  another,  won- 
dering whether  he  had  come  across  a  bobcat,  or  whether 
it  had  really  been  a  fresh  cougar  trail  after  all. 

Leaving  our  horses  we  scrambled  up  the  canyon  until 
we  got  in  sight  of  a  large  pinyon  on  the  hillside,  under- 
neath which  Tree'em  was  standing,  with  his  preposter- 
ous tail  arched  like  a  pump-handle,  as  he  gazed  solemnly 
up  in  the  tree,  now  and  then  uttering  a  bark  at  a  huge 
cougar,  which  by  this  time  we  could  distinctly  make  out 
standing  in  the  branches.  Turk  and  Queen  had  already 


66  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

left  us  and  were  running  hard  to  join  Tree'em,  and  in  an- 
other minute  or  two  all  of  the  hounds,  except  the  belated 
Boxer  and  Nellie,  had  also  come  up.  The  cougar  having 
now  recovered  his  wind,  jumped  down  and  cantered  off. 
He  had  been  running  for  three  hours  before  the  dogs  and 
evidently  had  been  overtaken  again  and  again,  but  had 
either  refused  to  tree,  or  if  he  did  tree  had  soon  come 
down  and  continued  his  flight,  the  hounds  not  venturing 
to  meddle  with  him,  and  he  paying  little  heed  to  them. 
It  was  a  different  matter,  however,  with  Turk  and  Queen 
along.  He  went  up  the  hill  and  came  to  bay  on  the  top 
of  the  cliffs,  where  we  could  see  him  against  the  skyline. 
The  hounds  surrounded  him,  but  neither  they  nor  Turk 
came  to  close  quarters.  Queen,  however,  as  soon  as  she 
arrived  rushed  straight  in,  and  the  cougar  knocked  her 
a  dozen  feet  off.  Turk  tried  to  seize  him  as  soon  as  Queen 
had  made  her  rush ;  the  cougar  broke  bay,  and  they  all  dis- 
appeared over  the  hill-top,  while  we  hurried  after  them. 
A  quarter  of  a  mile  beyond,  on  the  steep  hillside,  they 
again  had  him  up  a  pinyon-tree.  I  approached  as  cau- 
tiously as  possible  so  as  not  to  alarm  him.  He  stood  in 
such  an  awkward  position  that  I  could  not  get  a  fair 
shot  at  the  heart,  but  the  bullet  broke  his  back,  and 
the  dogs  seized  him  as  he  struck  the  ground.  There 
was  still  any  amount  of  fight  in  him,  and  I  ran  in  as 
fast  as  possible,  jumping  and  slipping  over  the  rocks 
and  the  bushes  as  the  cougar  and  dogs  rolled  and  slid 
down  the  steep  mountain-side — for,  of  course,  every  min- 
ute's delay  meant  the  chance  of  a  dog  being  killed  or 
crippled.  It  was  a  day  of  misfortunes  for  Jim,  who  was 


WITH    THE    COUGAR   HOUNDS          67 

knocked  completely  out  of  the  fight  by  a  single  blow. 
The  cougar  was  too  big  for  the  dogs  to  master,  even  crip- 
pled as  he  was;  but  when  I  came  up  close  Turk  ran  in 
and  got  the  great  beast  by  one  ear,  stretching  out  the  cou- 
gar's head,  while  he  kept  his  own  forelegs  tucked  way 
back  so  that  the  cougar  could  not  get  hold  of  them.  This 
gave  me  my  chance  and  I  drove  the  knife  home,  leaping 
back  before  the  creature  could  get  round  at  me.  Boxer 
did  not  come  up  for  half  an  hour,  working  out  every  inch 
of  the  trail  for  himself,  and  croaking  away  at  short  in- 
tervals, while  Nellie  trotted  calmly  beside  him.  Even 
when  he  saw  us  skinning  the  cougar  he  would  not  hurry 
nor  take  a  short  cut,  but  followed  the  scent  to  where  the 
cougar  had  gone  up  the  tree,  and  from  the  tree  down  to 
where  we  were;  then  he  meditatively  bit  the  carcass, 
strolled  off,  and  lay  down,  satisfied. 

It  was  a  very  large  cougar,  fat  and  heavy,  and  the  men 
at  the  ranch  believed  it  was  the  same  one  which  had  at 
intervals  haunted  the  place  for  two  or  three  years,  kill- 
ing on  one  occasion  a  milch  cow,  on  another  a  steer,  and 
on  yet  another  a  big  work  horse.  Goff  stated  that  he  had 
on  two  or  three  occasions  killed  cougars  that  were  quite 
as  long,  and  he  believed  even  an  inch  or  two  longer,  but 
that  he  had  never  seen  one  as  large  or  as  heavy.  Its 
weight  was  227  pounds,  and  as  it  lay  stretched  out  it 
looked  like  a  small  African  lioness.  It  would  be  im- 
possible to  wish  a  better  ending  to  a  hunt. 

The  next  day  Goff  and  I  cantered  thirty  miles  into 
Meeker,  and  my  holiday  was  over. 


CHAPTER   II 

A  COLORADO  BEAR  HUNT 

IN  mid-April,  nineteen  hundred  and  five,  our  party, 
consisting  of  Philip  B.  Stewart,  of  Colorado  Springs,  and 
Dr.  Alexander  Lambert,  of  New  York,  in  addition  to  my- 
self, left  Newcastle,  Col.,  for  a  bear  hunt.  As  guides  and 
hunters  we  had  John  GofI  and  Jake  Borah,  than  whom 
there  are  no  better  men  at  their  work  of  hunting  bear 
in  the  mountains  with  hounds.  Each  brought  his  own 
dogs;  all  told,  there  were  twenty-six  hounds,  and  four 
half-blood  terriers  to  help  worry  the  bear  when  at  bay. 
We  travelled  in  comfort,  with  a  big  pack  train,  spare 
horses  for  each  of  us,  and  a  cook,  packers,  and  horse 
wranglers.  I  carried  one  of  the  new  model  Springfield 
military  rifles,  a  30-40,  with  a  soft-nosed  bullet — a  very 
accurate  and  hard-hitting  gun. 

This  first  day  we  rode  about  twenty  miles  to  where 
camp  was  pitched  on  the  upper  waters  of  East  Divide 
Creek.  It  was  a  picturesque  spot.  At  this  altitude  it  was 
still  late  winter  and  the  snow  lay  in  drifts,  even  in  the 
creek  bottom,  while  the  stream  itself  was  not  yet  clear 
from  ice.  The  tents  were  pitched  in  a  grove  of  leafless 
aspens  and  great  spruces,  beside  the  rushing,  ice-rimmed 
brook.  The  cook  tent,  with  its  stove,  was  an  attractive 
place  on  the  cool  mornings  and  in  stormy  weather.  Fry, 

68 


A   COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  69 

the  cook,  a  most  competent  man,  had  rigged  up  a  table, 
and  we  had  folding  camp-chairs — luxuries  utterly  un- 
known to  my  former  camping  trips.  Each  day  we  break- 
fasted early  and  dined  ten  or  twelve  hours  later,  on  re- 
turning from  the  day's  hunt;  and  as  we  carried  no  lunch, 
the  two  meals  were  enjoyed  with  ravenous  pleasure  by  the 
entire  company.  The  horses  were  stout,  tough,  shaggy 
beasts,  of  wonderful  staying  power,  and  able  to  climb  like 
cats.  The  country  was  very  steep  and  rugged ;  the  moun- 
tain-sides were  greasy  and  slippery  from  the  melting 
snow,  while  the  snow  bucking  through  the  deep  drifts  on 
their  tops  and  on  the  north  sides  was  exhausting.  Only 
sure-footed  animals  could  avoid  serious  tumbles,  and  only 
animals  of  great  endurance  could  have  lasted  through 
the  work.  Both  Johnny  Goff  and  his  partner,  Brick 
Wells,  who  often  accompanied  us  on  the  hunts,  were  fre- 
quently mounted  on  animals  of  uncertain  temper,  with 
a  tendency  to  buck  on  insufficient  provocation;  but  they 
rode  them  with  entire  indifference  up  and  down  any 
incline.  One  of  the  riders,  "  Al,"  a  very  good  tempered 
man,  a  tireless  worker,  had  as  one  of  his  horses  a  queer, 
big-headed  dun  beast,  with  a  black  stripe  down  its  back 
and  traces  of  zebra-like  bands  on  the  backs  of  his  front 
legs.  He  was  an  atavistic  animal,  looking  much  as  the 
horses  must  have  looked  which  an  age  or  two  ago  lived 
in  this  very  locality  and  were  preyed  on  by  sabre-toothed 
tigers,  hyenadons,  and  other  strange  and  terrible  beasts 
of  a  long-vanished  era.  Lambert  remarked  to  him:  "  Al, 
you  ought  to  call  that  horse  of  yours  '  Fossil';  he  is  a 
hundred  thousand  years  old."  To  which  Al,  with  im- 


7o  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

movable  face,  replied:  "  Gee!  and  that  man  sold  him  to 
me  for  a  seven-year-old!    I'll  have  the  law  on  him!  " 

The  hounds  were  most  interesting,  and  showed  all  the 
variations  of  character  and  temper  to  be  expected  in  such 
a  pack;  a  pack  in  which  performance  counted  for  every- 
thing and  pedigree  for  nothing.  One  of  the  best  hounds 
was  half  fox  terrier.  Three  of  Johnny's  had  been  with 
us  four  years  before,  when  he  and  I  hunted  cougars  to- 
gether; these  three  being  Jim,  now  an  old  dog,  who 
dropped  behind  in  a  hard  run,  but  still  excellent  on  a 
cold  trail;  Tree'em,  who,  like  Jim,  had  grown  aged,  but 
was  very  sure;  and  Bruno,  who  had  become  one  of  the 
best  of  all  the  pack  on  a  hot  trail,  but  who  was  apt  to  over- 
run it  if  it  became  at  all  difficult  and  cold.  The  biggest 
dog  of  the  pack,  a  very  powerful  animal,  was  Badge,  who 
was  half  foxhound  and  half  what  Johnny  called  Siberian 
bloodhound — I  suppose  a  Great  Dane  or  Ulm  dog.  His 
full  brother  Bill  came  next  to  him.  There  was  a  Rowdy 
in  Jake's  pack  and  another  Rowdy  in  Johnny's,  and  each 
got  badly  hurt  before  the  hunt  was  through.  Jake's 
Rowdy,  as  soon  as  an  animal  was  killed,  became  very 
cross  and  wished  to  attack  any  dog  that  came  near.  One  of 
Jake's  best  hounds  was  old  Bruise,  a  very  sure,  although 
not  a  particularly  fast  dog.  All  the  members  of  the  pack 
held  the  usual  wild-beast  attitude  toward  one  another. 
They  joined  together  for  the  chase  and  the  fight,  but  once 
the  quarry  was  killed,  their  relations  among  themselves 
became  those  of  active  hostility  or  selfish  indifference. 
At  feeding  time  each  took  whatever  his  strength  per- 
mitted, and  each  paid  abject  deference  to  whichever  ani- 


A    COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  71 

mal  was  his  known  superior  in  prowess.  Some  of  the 
younger  dogs  would  now  and  then  run  deer  or  coyote. 
But  the  older  dogs  paid  heed  only  to  bear  and  bobcat;  and 
the  pack,  as  a  body,  discriminated  sharply  between  the 
hounds  they  could  trust  and  those  which  would  go  off 
on  a  wrong  trail.  The  four  terriers  included  a  heavy, 
liver-colored  half-breed  bull-dog,  a  preposterous  animal 
who  looked  as  if  his  ancestry  had  included  a  toadfish. 
He  was  a  terrible  fighter,  but  his  unvarying  attitude  tow- 
ard mankind  was  one  of  effusive  and  rather  foolish 
affection.  In  a  fight  he  could  whip  any  of  the  hounds 
save  Badge,  and  he  was  far  more  willing  than  Badge  to 
accept  punishment.  There  was  also  a  funny  little  black 
and  tan,  named  Skip,  a  most  friendly  little  fellow,  espe- 
cially fond  of  riding  in  front  or  behind  the  saddle  of  any 
one  of  us  who  would  take  him  up,  although  perfectly 
able  to  travel  forty  miles  a  day  on  his  own  sturdy  legs  if 
he  had  to,  and  then  to  join  in  the  worry  of  the  quarry 
when  once  it  had  been  shot.  Porcupines  abounded  in  the 
woods,  and  one  or  two  of  the  terriers  and  half  a  dozen 
of  the  hounds  positively  refused  to  learn  any  wisdom, 
invariably  attacking  each  porcupine  they  found;  the  re- 
sult being  that  we  had  to  spend  many  minutes  in  removing 
the  quills  from  their  mouths,  eyes,  etc.  A  white  bull-ter- 
rier would  come  in  from  such  a  combat  with  his  nose 
literally  looking  like  a  glorified  pincushion,  and  many  of 
the  spines  we  had  to  take  out  with  nippers.  The  terriers 
never  ran  with  the  hounds,  but  stayed  behind  with  the 
horses  until  they  heard  the  hounds  barking  "  bayed  "  or 
"  treed,"  when  they  forthwith  tore  toward  them.  Skip 


72  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

adopted  me  as  his  special  master,  rode  with  me  whenever 
I  would  let  him,  and  slept  on  the  foot  of  my  bed  at  night, 
growling  defiance  at  anything  that  came  near.  I  grew 
attached  to  the  friendly,  bright  little  fellow,  and  at  the 
end  of  the  hunt  took  him  home  with  me  as  a  playmate 
for  the  children. 

It  was  a  great,  wild  country.  In  the  creek  bottoms 
there  were  a  good  many  ranches ;  but  we  only  occasionally 
passed  by  these,  on  our  way  to  our  hunting  grounds  in  the 
wilderness  along  the  edge  of  the  snow-line.  The  moun- 
tains crowded  close  together  in  chain,  peak,  and  table- 
land; all  the  higher  ones  were  wrapped  in  an  unrent 
shroud  of  snow.  We  saw  a  good  many  deer,  and  fresh 
sign  of  elk,  but  no  elk  themselves,  although  we  were  in- 
formed that  bands  were  to  be  found  in  the  high  spruce 
timber  where  the  snows  were  so  deep  that  it  would  have 
been  impossible  to  go  on  horseback,  while  going  on  foot 
would  have  been  inconceivably  fatiguing.  The  country 
was  open.  The  high  peaks  were  bare  of  trees.  Cotton- 
woods,  and  occasionally  dwarfed  birch  or  maple  and  wil- 
lows, fringed  the  streams;  aspens  grew  in  groves  higher 
up.  There  were  pinyons  and  cedars  on  the  slopes  of  the 
foothills;  spruce  clustered  here  and  there  in  the  cooler 
ravines  and  valleys  and  high  up  the  mountains.  The 
dense  oak  brush  and  thick  growing  cedars  were  hard  on 
our  clothes,  and  sometimes  on  our  bodies. 

Bear  and  cougars  had  once  been  very  plentiful 
throughout  this  region,  but  during  the  last  three  or  four 
years  the  cougars  have  greatly  diminished  in  numbers 
throughout  northern  Colorado,  and  the  bears  have  dimin- 


A   COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  73 

ished  also,  although  not  to  the  same  extent.  The  great 
grizzlies  which  were  once  fairly  plentiful  here  are  now 
very  rare,  as  they  are  in  most  places  in  the  United  States. 
There  remain  plenty  of  the  black  and  brown  bears,  which 
are  simply  individual  color  phases  of  the  same  species. 

Bears  are  interesting  creatures  and  their  habits  are 
always  worth  watching.  When  I  used  to  hunt  grizzlies 
my  experience  tended  to  make  me  lay  special  emphasis 
on  their  variation  in  temper.  There  are  savage  and  cow- 
ardly bears,  just  as  there  are  big  and  little  ones;  and 
sometimes  these  variations  are  very  marked  among  bears 
of  the  same  district,  and  at  other  times  all  the  bears  of 
one  district  will  seem  to  have  a  common  code  of  behavior 
which  differs  utterly  from  that  of  the  bears  of  another 
district.  Readers  of  Lewis  and  Clark  do  not  need  to  be 
reminded  of  the  great  difference  they  found  in  ferocity 
between  the  bears  of  the  upper  Missouri  and  the  bears  of 
the  Columbia  River  country;  and  those  who  have  lived 
in  the  upper  Missouri  country  nowadays  know  how  wide- 
ly the  bears  that  still  remain  have  altered  in  character 
from  what  they  were  as  recently  as  the  middle  of  the  last 
century. 

This  variability  has  been  shown  in  the  bears  which 
I  have  stumbled  upon  at  close  quarters.  On  but  one  oc- 
casion was  I  ever  regularly  charged  by  a  grizzly.  To  this 
animal  I  had  given  a  mortal  wound,  and  without  any 
effort  at  retaliation  he  bolted  into  a  thicket  of  what,  in 
my  hurry,  I  thought  was  laurel  (it  being  composed  in 
reality,  I  suppose,  of  thick-growing  berry  bushes) .  On 
my  following  him  and  giving  him  a  second  wound,  he 


74  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

charged  very  determinedly,  taking  two  more  bullets  with- 
out flinching.  I  just  escaped  the  charge  by  jumping  to 
one  side,  and  he  died  almost  immediately  after  striking  at 
me  as  he  rushed  by.  This  bear  charged  with  his  mouth 
open,  but  made  very  little  noise  after  the  growl  or  roar 
with  which  he  greeted  my  second  bullet.  I  mention  the 
fact  of  his  having  kept  his  mouth  open,  because  one  or  two 
of  my  friends  who  have  been  charged  have  informed  me 
that  in  their  cases  they  particularly  noticed  that  the  bear 
charged  with  his  mouth  shut.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  my 
bear  was  shot  through  the  lungs  may  account  for  the  dif- 
ference, or  it  may  simply  be  another  example  of  indi- 
vidual variation. 

On  another  occasion,  in  a  windfall,  I  got  up  within 
eight  or  ten  feet  of  a  grizzly,  which  simply  bolted  off,  pay- 
ing no  heed  to  a  hurried  shot  which  I  delivered  as  I 
poised  unsteadily  on  the  swaying  top  of  an  overthrown 
dead  pine.  On  yet  another  occasion,  when  I  roused  a  big 
bear  from  his  sleep,  he  at  the  first  moment  seemed  to  pay 
little  or  no  heed  to  me,  and  then  turned  toward  me  in  a 
leisurely  way,  the  only  sign  of  hostility  he  betrayed  being 
to  ruffle  up  the  hair  on  his  shoulders  and  the  back  of  his 
neck.  I  hit  him  square  between  the  eyes,  and  he  dropped 
like  a  pole-axed  steer. 

On  another  occasion  I  got  up  quite  close  to  and  mor- 
tally wounded  a  bear,  which  ran  off  without  uttering  a 
sound  until  it  fell  dead;  but  another  of  these  grizzlies, 
which  I  shot  from  ambush,  kept  squalling  and  yelling 
every  time  I  hit  him,  making  a  great  rumpus.  On  one 
occasion  one  of  my  cow  hands  and  myself  were  able  to 


A    COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  75 

run  down  on  foot  a  she  grizzly  bear  and  her  cub,  which 
had  obtained  a  long  start  of  us,  simply  because  of  the 
foolish  conduct  of  the  mother.  The  cub — or  more  prop- 
erly the  yearling,  for  it  was  a  cub  of  the  second  year — 
ran  on  far  ahead,  and  would  have  escaped  if  the  old  she 
had  not  continually  stopped  and  sat  up  on  her  hind  legs 
to  look  back  at  us.  I  think  she  did  this  partly  from  curi- 
osity, but  partly  also  from  bad  temper,  for  once  or  twice 
she  grinned  and  roared  at  us.  The  upshot  of  it  was  that  I 
got  within  range  and  put  a  bullet  in  the  old  she,  who 
afterward  charged  my  companion  and  was  killed;  and 
we  also  got  the  yearling. 

One  young  grizzly  which  I  killed  many  years  ago 
dropped  to  the  first  bullet,  which  entered  its  stomach.  It 
then  let  myself  and  my  companion  approach  closely,  look- 
ing up  at  us  with  alert  curiosity,  but  making  no  effort 
to  escape.  It  was  really  not  crippled  at  all,  but  we 
thought  from  its  actions  that  its  back  was  broken,  and  my 
companion  advanced  to  kill  it  with  his  pistol.  The  pistol, 
however,  did  not  inflict  a  mortal  wound,  and  the  only 
effect  was  to  make  the  young  bear  jump  to  its  feet  as  if 
unhurt,  and  race  off  at  full  speed  through  the  timber;  for 
though  not  full  grown  it  was  beyond  cubhood,  being 
probably  about  eighteen  months  old.  By  desperate  run- 
ning I  succeeded  in  getting  another  shot,  and  more  by 
luck  than  by  anything  else  knocked  it  over,  this  time  per- 
manently. 

Black  bear  are  not,  under  normal  conditions,  formi- 
dable brutes.  If  they  do  charge  and  get  home  they  may 
maul  a  man  severely,  and  there  are  a  number  of  instances 


76  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

on  record  in  which  they  have  killed  men.  Ordinarily, 
however,  a  black  bear  will  not  charge  home,  though  he 
may  bluster  a  good  deal.  I  once  shot  one  very  close  up 
which  made  a  most  lamentable  outcry,  and  seemed  to  lose 
its  head,  its  efforts  to  escape  resulting  in  its  bouncing 
about  among  the  trees  with  such  heedless  hurry  that  I 
was  easily  able  to  kill  it.  Another  black  bear,  which  I 
also  shot  at  close  quarters,  came  straight  for  my  compan- 
ions and  myself,  and  almost  ran  over  the  white  hunter 
who  was  with  me.  This  bear  made  no  sound  whatever 
when  I  first  hit  it,  and  I  do  not  think  it  was  charging.  I 
believe  it  was  simply  dazed,  and  by  accident  ran  the 
wrong  way,  and  so  almost  came  into  collision  with  us. 
However,  when  it  found  itself  face  to  face  with  the  white 
hunter,  and  only  four  or  five  feet  away,  it  prepared  for 
hostilities,  and  I  think  would  have  mauled  him  if  I  had 
not  brained  it  with  another  bullet;  for  I  was  myself  stand- 
ing but  six  feet  or  so  to  one  side  of  it.  None  of  the  bears 
shot  on  this  Colorado  trip  made  a  sound  when  hit;  they 
all  died  silently,  like  so  many  wolves. 

Ordinarily,  my  experience  has  been  that  bears  were 
not  flurried  when  I  suddenly  came  upon  them.  They 
impressed  me  as  if  they  were  always  keeping  in  mind  the 
place  toward  which  they  wished  to  retreat  in  the  event 
of  danger,  and  for  this  place,  which  was  invariably  a 
piece  of  rough  ground  or  dense  timber,  they  made  off 
with  all  possible  speed,  not  seeming  to  lose  their  heads. 

Frequently  I  have  been  able  to  watch  bears  for  some 
time  while  myself  unobserved.  With  other  game  I  have 
very  often  done  this  even  when  within  close  range,  not 


CO 
D. 


'LORADO    BEAR    H 


77 


wishing  to  kill  creatures  needlessly,  or  without  a  good 
object;  but  with  bears,  my  experience  has  been  that 
chances  to  secure  them  come  so  seldom  as  to  make  it  very 
distinctly  worth  while  improving  any  that  do  come,  and 
I  have  not  spent  much  time  watching  any  bear  unless  he 
was  in  a  place  where  I  could  not  get  at  him,  or  else  was 
so  close  at  hand  that  I  was  not  afraid  of  his  getting  away. 
On  one  occasion  the  bear  was  hard  at  work  digging  up 
squirrel  or  gopher  caches  on  the  side  of  a  pine-clad  hill; 
while  at  this  work  he  looked  rather  like  a  big  badger. 
On  two  other  occasions  the  bear  was  fussing  around  a  car- 
cass preparatory  to  burying  it.  On  these  occasions  I  was 
very  close,  and  it  was  extremely  interesting  to  note  the 
grotesque,  half-human  movements,  and  giant,  awkward 
strength  of  the  great  beast.  He  would  twist  the  carcass 
around  with  the  utmost  ease,  sometimes  taking  it  in  his 
teeth  and  dragging  it,  at  other  times  grasping  it  in  his 
forepaws  and  half  lifting,  half  shoving  it.  Once  the  bear 
lost  his  grip  and  rolled  over  during  the  course  of  some 
movement,  and  this  made  him  angry,  and  he  struck  the 
carcass  a  savage  whack,  just  as  a  pettish  child  will  strike 
a  table  against  which  it  has  knocked  itself.  At  another 
time  I  watched  a  black  bear  some  distance  off  getting 
his  breakfast  under  stumps  and  stones.  He  was  very  ac- 
tive, turning  the  stone  or  log  over,  and  then  thrusting  his 
muzzle  into  the  empty  space  to  gobble  up  the  small  creat- 
ures below  before  they  recovered  from  their  surprise  and 
the  sudden  inflow  of  light.  From  under  one  log  he  put 
a  chipmunk,  and  danced  hither  and  thither  with  even 
more  agility  than  awkwardness,  slapping  at  the  chip- 


78  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

munk  with  his  paw  while  it  zigzagged  about,  until  finally 
he  scooped  it  into  his  mouth. 

All  this  was  in  the  old  days  when  I  was  still-hunting, 
with  only  the  rifle.  This  Colorado  trip  was  the  first  on 
which  I  hunted  bears  with  hounds.  If  we  had  run  across 
a  grizzly  there  would  doubtless  have  been  a  chance  to 
show  some  prowess,  at  least  in  the  way  of  hard  riding. 
But  the  black  and  brown  bears  cannot,  save  under  ex- 
ceptional circumstances,  escape  from  such  a  pack  as  we 
had  with  us ;  and  the  real  merit  of  the  chase  was  confined 
to  the  hounds  and  to  Jake  and  Johnny  for  their  skill  in 
handling  them.  Perhaps  I  should  add  the  horses,  for 
their  extraordinary  endurance  and  surefootedness.  As 
for  the  rest  of  us,  we  needed  to  do  little  more  than  to 
sit  ten  or  twelve  hours  in  the  saddle  and  occasionally  lead 
the  horses  up  or  down  the  most  precipitous  and  cliff-like 
of  the  mountain  sides.  But  it  was  great  fun,  nevertheless, 
and  usually  a  chase  lasted  long  enough  to  be  interesting. 

The  first  day  after  reaching  camp  we  rode  for  eleven 
hours  over  a  very  difficult  country,  but  without  getting 
above  the  snow-line.  Finally  the  dogs  got  on  the  fresh 
trail  of  a  bobcat,  and  away  they  went.  A  bobcat  will 
often  give  a  good  run,  much  better,  on  the  average,  than 
a  cougar;  and  this  one  puzzled  the  dogs  not  a  little  at 
first.  It  scrambled  out  of  one  deep  valley,  crossing  and 
recrossing  the  rock  ledges  where  its  scent  was  hard  to 
follow;  then  plunged  into  another  valley.  Meanwhile 
we  had  ridden  up  on  the  high  mountain  spur  between  the 
two  valleys,  and  after  scrambling  and  galloping  to  and 
fro  as  the  cry  veered  from  point  to  point  when  the  dogs 


A   COLORADO    BEAR   HUNT 


79 


changed  directions,  we  saw  them  cross  into  the  second 
valley.  Here  again  they  took  a  good  deal  of  time  to 
puzzle  out  the  trail,  and  became  somewhat  scattered.  We 
had  dismounted  and  were  standing  by  the  horses'  heads, 
listening  to  the  baying  and  trying  to  decide  which  way 
we  should  go,  when  Stewart  suddenly  pointed  us  out  a 
bear.  It  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  valley  from  us,  and 
perhaps  half  a  mile  away,  galloping  down  hill,  with  two 
of  the  hounds  after  it,  and  in  the  sunlight  its  fur  looked 
glossy  black.  In  a  minute  or  two  it  passed  out  of  sight 
in  the  thick-growing  timber  at  the  bottom  of  the  valley; 
and  as  we  afterward  found,  the  two  hounds,  getting  mo- 
mentarily thrown  out,  and  hearing  the  others  still  baying 
on  the  cat  trail,  joined  the  latter.  Jake  started  off  to  go 
around  the  head  of  the  valley,  while  the  rest  of  us  plunged 
down  into  it.  We  found  from  the  track  that  the  bear 
had  gone  up  the  valley,  and  Jake  found  where  he  had 
come  out  on  the  high  divide,  and  then  turned  and  re- 
traced his  steps.  But  the  hounds  were  evidently  all  after 
the  cat.  There  was  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  follow  them. 
Sometimes  riding,  sometimes  leading  the  horses,  we  went 
up  the  steep  hillside,  and  as  soon  as  we  reached  the  crest 
heard  the  hounds  barking  treed.  Shorty  and  Skip,  who 
always  trotted  after  the  horses  while  the  hounds  were  in 
full  cry  on  a  trail,  recognized  the  change  of  note  im- 
mediately, and  tore  off  in  the  direction  of  the  bay,  while 
we  followed  as  best  we  could,  hoping  to  get  there  in  time 
for  Stewart  and  Lambert  to  take  photographs  of  the  lynx 
in  a  tree.  But  we  were  too  late.  Both  Shorty  and  Skip 
could  climb  trees,  and  although  Skip  was  too  light  to 


8o  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

tackle  a  bobcat  by  himself,  Shorty,  a  heavy,  formidable 
dog,  of  unflinching  courage  and  great  physical  strength, 
was  altogether  too  much  for  any  bobcat.  When  we 
reached  the  place  we  found  the  bobcat  in  the  top  of  a 
pinyon,  and  Shorty  steadily  working  his  way  up  through 
the  branches  and  very  near  the  quarry.  Evidently  the 
bobcat  felt  that  the  situation  needed  the  taking  of  desper- 
ate chances,  and  just  before  Shorty  reached  it  out  it 
jumped,  Shorty  yelling  with  excitement  as  he  plunged 
down  through  the  branches  after  it.  But  the  cat  did  not 
jump  far  enough.  One  of  the  hounds  seized  it  by  the 
hind  leg  and  in  another  second  everything  was  over. 

Shorty  was  always  the  first  of  the  pack  to  attack  dan- 
gerous game,  and  in  attacking  bear  or  cougar  even  Badge 
was  much  less  reckless  and  more  wary.  In  consequence, 
Shorty  was  seamed  over  with  scars ;  most  of  them  from 
bobcats,  but  one  or  two  from  cougars.  He  could  speedily 
kill  a  bobcat  single-handed ;  for  these  small  lynxes  are  not 
really  formidable  fighters,  although  they  will  lacerate  a 
dog  quite  severely.  Shorty  found  a  badger  a  much  more 
difficult  antagonist  than  a  bobcat.  A  bobcat  in  a  hole 
makes  a  hard  fight,  however.  On  this  hunt  we  once  got 
a  bobcat  under  a  big  rock,  and  Jake's  Rowdy  in  trying  to 
reach  it  got  so  badly  mauled  that  he  had  to  join  the 
invalid  class  for  several  days. 

The  bobcat  we  killed  this  first  day  was  a  male,  weigh- 
ing twenty-five  pounds.  It  was  too  late  to  try  after  the 
bear,  especially  as  we  had  only  ten  or  a  dozen  dogs  out, 
while  the  bear's  tracks  showed  it  to  be  a  big  one;  and 
we  rode  back  to  camp. 


A   COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  81 

Next  morning  we  rode  off  early,  taking  with  us  all 
twenty-six  hounds  and  the  four  terriers.  We  wished  first 
to  find  whether  the  bear  had  gone  out  of  the  country  in 
which  we  had  seen  him,  and  so  rode  up  a  valley  and  then 
scrambled  laboriously  up  the  mountain-side  to  the  top  of 
the  snow-covered  divide.  Here  the  snow  was  three  feet 
deep  in  places,  and  the  horses  plunged  and  floundered  as 
we  worked  our  way  in  single  file  through  the  drifts.  But 
it  had  frozen  hard  the  previous  night,  so  that  a  bear  could 
walk  on  the  crust  and  leave  very  little  sign.  In  conse- 
quence we  came  near  passing  over  the  place  where  the 
animal  we  were  after  had  actually  crossed  out  of  the 
canyon-like  ravine  in  which  we  had  seen  him  and  gone 
over  the  divide  into  another  set  of  valleys.  The  trail  was 
so  faint  that  it  puzzled  us,  as  we  could  not  be  certain  how 
fresh  it  was,  and  until  this  point  could  be  cleared  up  we 
tried  to  keep  the  hounds  from  following  it.  Old  Jim, 
however,  slipped  off  to  one  side  and  speedily  satisfied 
himself  that  the  trail  was  fresh.  Along  it  he  went,  giving 
tongue,  and  the  other  dogs  were  maddened  by  the  sound, 
while  Jim,  under  such  circumstances,  paid  no  heed  what- 
ever to  any  effort  to  make  him  come  back.  Accordingly, 
the  other  hounds  were  slipped  after  him,  and  down  they 
ran  into  the  valley,  while  we  slid,  floundered,  and  scram- 
bled along  the  ridge  crest  parallel  to  them,  until  a  couple 
of  miles  farther  on  we  worked  our  way  down  to  some 
great  slopes  covered  with  dwarf  scrub-oak.  At  the  edge 
of  these  slopes,  where  they  fell  off  in  abrupt  descent  to 
the  stream  at  the  bottom  of  the  valley,  we  halted.  Op- 
posite us  was  a  high  and  very  rugged  mountain-side  cov- 


82  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ered  with  a  growth  of  pinyon — never  a  close-grow- 
ing tree — its  precipitous  flanks  broken  by  ledges  and 
scored  by  gullies  and  ravines.  It  was  hard  to  follow  the 
scent  across  such  a  mountain-side,  and  the  dogs  speedily 
became  much  scattered.  We  could  hear  them  plainly, 
and  now  and  then  could  see  them,  looking  like  ants  as 
they  ran  up  and  down  hill  and  along  the  ledges.  Finally 
we  heard  some  of  them  barking  bayed.  The  volume  of 
sound  increased  steadily  as  the  straggling  dogs  joined 
those  which  had  first  reached  the  hunted  animal.  At 
about  this  time,  to  our  astonishment,  Badge,  usually  a 
stanch  fighter,  rejoined  us,  followed  by  one  or  two  other 
hounds,  who  seemed  to  have  had  enough  of  the  matter. 
Immediately  afterward  we  saw  the  bear,  half-way  up  the 
opposite  mountain-side.  The  hounds  were  all  around 
him,  and  occasionally  bit  at  his  hind  quarters ;  but  he  had 
evidently  no  intention  of  climbing  a  tree.  When  we  first 
saw  him  he  was  sitting  up  on  a  point  of  rock  surrounded 
by  the  pack,  his  black  fur  showing  to  fine  advantage. 
Then  he  moved  off,  threatening  the  dogs,  and  making 
what  in  Mississippi  is  called  a  walking  bay.  He  was  a 
sullen,  powerful  beast,  and  his  leisurely  gait  showed  how 
little  he  feared  the  pack,  and  how  confident  he  was  in  his 
own  burly  strength.  By  this  time  the  dogs  had  been  after 
him  for  a  couple  of  hours,  and  as  there  was  no  water  on 
the  mountain-side  we  feared  they  might  be  getting  ex- 
hausted, and  rode  toward  them  as  rapidly  as  we  could. 
It  was  a  hard  climb  up  to  where  they  were,  and  we  had 
to  lead  the  horses.  Just  as  we  came  in  sight  of  him,  across 
a  deep  gully  which  ran  down  the  sheer  mountain-side, 


DEATH    OF   THE   BIG    BEAR 
From  a  photograph  by  Philip  B.  Stewart 


A   COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  83 

he  broke  bay  and  started  off,  threatening  the  foremost  of 
the  pack  as  they  dared  to  approach  him.  They  were  all 
around  him,  and  for  a  minute  I  could  not  fire;  then  as 
he  passed  under  a  pinyon  I  got  a  clear  view  of  his  great 
round  stern  and  pulled  trigger.  The  bullet  broke  both 
his  hips,  and  he  rolled  down  hill,  the  hounds  yelling  with 
excitement  as  they  closed  in  on  him.  He  could  still  play 
havoc  with  the  pack,  and  there  was  need  to  kill  him  at 
once.  I  leaped  and  slid  down  my  side  of  the  gully  as 
he  rolled  down  his;  at  the  bottom  he  stopped  and 
raised  himself  on  his  fore  quarters;  and  with  another 
bullet  I  broke  his  back  between  the  shoulders. 

Immediately  all  the  dogs  began  to  worry  the  carcass, 
while  their  savage  baying  echoed  so  loudly  in  the  narrow, 
steep  gully  that  we  could  with  difficulty  hear  one  another 
speak.  It  was  a  wild  scene  to  look  upon,  as  we  scrambled 
down  to  where  the  dead  bear  lay  on  his  back  between 
the  rocks.  He  did  not  die  wholly  unavenged,  for  he  had 
killed  one  of  the  terriers  and  six  other  dogs  were  more 
or  less  injured.  The  chase  of  the  bear  is  grim  work  for 
the  pack.  Jim,  usually  a  very  wary  fighter,  had  a  couple 
of  deep  holes  in  his  thigh;  but  the  most  mishandled  of 
the  wounded  dogs  was  Shorty.  With  his  usual  dauntless 
courage  he  had  gone  straight  at  the  bear's  head.  Being 
such  a  heavy,  powerful  animal,  I  think  if  he  had  been 
backed  up  he  could  have  held  the  bear's  head  down,  and 
prevented  the  beast  from  doing  much  injury.  As  it  was, 
the  bear  bit  through  the  side  of  Shorty's  head,  and  bit 
him  in  the  shoulder,  and  again  in  the  hip,  inflicting  very 
bad  wounds.  Once  the  fight  was  over  Shorty  lay  down  on 


84  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  hillside,  unable  to  move.  When  we  started  home  we 
put  him  beside  a  little  brook,  and  left  a  piece  of  bear  meat 
by  him,  as  it  was  obvious  we  could  not  get  him  to  camp 
that  day.  Next  day  one  of  the  boys  went  back  with  a 
pack-horse  to  take  him  in;  but  half-way  out  met  him 
struggling  toward  camp,  and  returned.  Late  in  the  after- 
noon Shorty  turned  up  while  we  were  at  dinner,  and  stag- 
gered toward  us,  wagging  his  tail  with  enthusiastic  de- 
light at  seeing  his  friends.  We  fed  him  until  he  could  not 
hold  another  mouthful ;  then  he  curled  up  in  a  dry  corner 
of  the  cook-tent  and  slept  for  forty-eight  hours;  and  two 
or  three  days  afterward  was  able  once  more  to  go  hunting. 
The  bear  was  a  big  male,  weighing  three  hundred  and 
thirty  pounds.  On  examination  at  close  quarters,  his  fur, 
which  was  in  fine  condition,  was  not  as  black  as  it  had 
seemed  when  seen  afar  off,  the  roots  of  the  hairs  being 
brown.  There  was  nothing  whatever  in  his  stomach. 
Evidently  he  had  not  yet  begun  to  eat,  and  had  been  but 
a  short  while  out  of  his  hole.  Bear  feed  very  little  when 
they  first  come  out  of  their  dens,  sometimes  beginning  on 
grass,  sometimes  on  buds.  Occasionally  they  will  feed  at 
carcasses  and  try  to  kill  animals  within  a  week  or  two 
after  they  have  left  winter  quarters,  but  this  is  rare,  and  as 
a  usual  thing  for  the  first  few  weeks  after  they  have  come 
out  they  feed  much  as  a  deer  would.  Although  not  hog 
fat,  as  would  probably  have  been  the  case  in  the  fall,  this 
bear  was  in  good  condition.  In  the  fall,  however,  he 
would  doubtless  have  weighed  over  four  hundred  pounds. 
The  three  old  females  we  got  on  this  trip  weighed  one 
hundred  and  eighty,  one  hundred  and  seventy-five,  and 


A    COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  85 

one  hundred  and  thirty-five  pounds  apiece.  The  year- 
lings weighed  from  thirty-one  to  forty  pounds.  The 
only  other  black  bears  I  ever  weighed  all  belonged  to  the 
sub-species  Luteolus,  and  were  killed  on  the  Little  Sun- 
flower River,  in  Mississippi,  in  the  late  fall  of  nineteen 
hundred  and  two.  A  big  old  male,  in  poor  condition, 
weighed  two  hundred  and  eighty-five  pounds,  and  two 
very  fat  females  weighed  two  hundred  and  twenty  and 
two  hundred  and  thirty-five  pounds  respectively. 

The  next  few  days  we  spent  in  hunting  perseveringly, 
but  unsuccessfully.  Each  day  we  were  from  six  to  twelve 
hours  in  the  saddle,  climbing  with  weary  toil  up  the 
mountains  and  slipping  and  scrambling  down  them.  On 
the  tops  and  on  the  north  slopes  there  was  much  snow, 
so  that  we  had  to  pick  our  trails  carefully,  and  even  thus 
the  horses  often  floundered  belly-deep  as  we  worked 
along  in  single  file;  the  men  on  the  horses  which  were 
best  at  snow  bucking  took  turns  in  breaking  the  trail. 
In  the  worst  places  we  had  to  dismount  and  lead  the 
horses,  often  over  such  bad  ground  that  nothing  less  sure- 
footed than  the  tough  mountain  ponies  could  even  have 
kept  their  legs.  The  weather  was  cold,  with  occasional 
sharp  flurries  of  snow,  and  once  a  regular  snow-storm. 
We  found  the  tracks  of  one  or  two  bears,  but  in  each  case 
several  days  old,  and  it  was  evident  either  that  the  bears 
had  gone  back  to  their  dens,  finding  the  season  so  late, 
or  else  that  they  were  lying  quiet  in  sheltered  places,  and 
travelling  as  little  as  possible.  One  day,  after  a  long  run 
of  certainly  five  or  six  miles  through  very  difficult  coun- 
try, the  dogs  treed  a  bobcat  in  a  big  cedar.  It  had  run  so 


86  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

far  that  it  was  badly  out  of  breath.  Stewart  climbed 
the  tree  and  took  several  photographs  of  it,  pushing  the 
camera  up  to  within  about  four  feet  of  where  the  cat 
sat.  Lambert  obtained  photographs  of  both  Stewart  and 
the  cat.  Shorty  was  at  this  time  still  an  invalid  from  his 
encounter  with  the  bear,  but  Skip  worked  his  way  thirty 
feet  up  the  tree  in  his  effort  to  get  at  the  bobcat.  Lam- 
bert shot  the  latter  with  his  revolver,  the  bobcat  dying 
stuck  in  the  branches;  and  he  then  had  to  climb  the  tree 
to  get  both  the  bobcat  and  Skip,  as  the  latter  was  at  such 
a  height  that  we  thought  he  would  hurt  himself  if  he 
fell.  Another  bobcat  when  treed  sealed  his  own  fate 
by  stepping  on  a  dead  branch  and  falling  right  into  the 
jaws  of  the  pack. 

At  this  camp,  as  everywhere,  the  tiny  four-striped 
chipmunks  were  plentiful  and  tame;  they  are  cheerful, 
attractive  little  animals.  We  also  saw  white-footed  mice 
and  a  big  meadow  mouse  around  camp;  and  we  found 
a  young  brushy-tailed  pack-rat.  The  snowshoe  rabbits 
were  still  white  on  the  mountains,  but  in  the  lower  valleys 
they  had  changed  to  the  summer  pelage.  On  the  moun- 
tains we  occasionally  saw  woodchucks  and  rock  squirrels 
of  two  kinds,  a  large  and  a  small — Spermophilus  gram- 
murus  and  armatus.  The  noisy,  cheerful  pine  squirrels 
were  common  where  the  woods  were  thick.  There  were 
eagles  and  ravens  in  the  mountains,  and  once  we  saw 
sandhill  cranes  soaring  far  above  the  highest  peaks.  The 
long-crested  jays  came  familiarly  around  camp,  but  on 
this  occasion  we  only  saw  the  whiskey- jacks,  Clark's  nut- 
crackers and  magpies,  while  off  in  the  mountains. 


STEWART  AND   THE   BOBCAT 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1905,  by  Alexander  Lambert,  M.D. 


.     , 



A   COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  87 

Among  the  pinyons,  we  several  times  came  across  strag- 
gling flocks  of  the  queer  pinyon  jays  or  blue  crows,  with 
their  unmistakable  calls  and  almost  blackbird-like  habits. 
There  were  hawks  of  several  species,  and  blue  grouse, 
while  the  smaller  birds  included  flickers,  robins,  and  the 
beautiful  mountain  bluebirds.  Juncos  and  mountain 
chickadees  were  plentiful,  and  the  ruby-crowned  kinglets 
were  singing  with  astonishing  power  for  such  tiny  birds. 
We  came  on  two  nests  of  the  red-tailed  hawk;  the  birds 
were  brooding,  and  seemed  tame  and  unwary. 

After  a  week  of  this  we  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  snow  was  too  deep  and  the  weather  too  cold  for  us  to 
expect  to  get  any  more  bear  in  the  immediate  neighbor- 
hood, and  accordingly  shifted  camp  to  where  Clear  Creek 
joins  West  Divide  Creek. 

The  first  day's  hunt  from  the  new  camp  was  success- 
ful. We  were  absent  about  eleven  hours  and  rode  some 
forty  miles.  The  day  included  four  hours'  steady  snow 
bucking,  for  the  bear,  as  soon  as  they  got  the  chance,  went 
through  the  thick  timber  where  the  snow  lay  deepest. 
Some  two  hours  after  leaving  camp  we  found  the  old 
tracks  of  a  she  and  a  yearling,  but  it  took  us  a  much  longer 
time  before  we  finally  struck  the  fresh  trail  made  late  the 
previous  night  or  early  in  the  morning.  It  was  Jake  who 
first  found  this  fresh  track,  while  Johnny  with  the  pack 
was  a  couple  of  miles  away,  slowly  but  surely  puzzling 
out  the  cold  trail  and  keeping  the  dogs  up  to  their  work. 
As  soon  as  Johnny  came  up  we  put  all  the  hounds  on  the 
tracks,  and  away  they  went,  through  and  over  the  snow, 
yelling  their  eager  delight.  Meanwhile  we  had  fixed  our 


88  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

saddles  and  were  ready  for  what  lay  ahead.  It  was 
wholly  impossible  to  ride  at  the  tail  of  the  pack,  but  we 
did  our  best  to  keep  within  sound  of  the  baying.  Finally, 
after  much  hard  work  and  much  point  riding  through 
snow,  slush,  and  deep  mud,  on  the  level,  and  along,  up, 
and  down  sheer  slopes,  we  heard  the  dogs  barking  treed 
in  the  middle  of  a  great  grove  of  aspens  high  up  the 
mountain-side.  The  snow  was4  too  deep  for  the  horses, 
and  leaving  them,  we  trudged  heavily  up  on  foot.  The 
yearling  was  in  the  top  of  a  tall  aspen.  Lambert  shot 
it  with  his  rifle  and  we  then  put  the  dogs  on  the  trail  of 
the  old  she.  Some  of  the  young  ones  did  not  know  what 
to  make  of  this,  evidently  feeling  that  the  tracks  must  be 
those  of  the  bear  that  they  had  already  killed;  but  the 
veterans  were  in  full  cry  at  once.  We  scrambled  after 
them  up  the  steep  mountain,  and  then  downward  along 
ridges  and  spurs,  getting  all  the  clear  ground  we  could. 
Finally  we  had  to  take  to  the  snow,  and  floundered  and 
slid  through  the  drifts  until  we  were  in  the  valley.  Most 
of  the  time  the  dogs  were  within  hearing,  giving  tongue 
as  they  followed  the  trail.  Finally  a  total  change  in  the 
note  showed  that  they  were  barking  treed;  and  as  rapidly 
as  possible  we  made  our  way  toward  the  sound.  Again 
we  found  ourselves  unable  to  bring  the  horses  up  to  where 
the  bear  had  treed,  and  scrambled  thither  on  foot  through 
the  deep  snow. 

The  bear  was  some  thirty  or  forty  feet  up  a  tall 
spruce;  it  was  a  big  she,  with  a  glossy  black-brown  coat. 
I  was  afraid  that  at  our  approach  she  might  come  down; 
but  she  had  been  running  hard  for  some  four  hours,  had 


THE   PACK   BAYING   THE   BEAR 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1905,  by  Alexander  Lambert,  M.D. 


•:   •        -"• 

,..:•       ...-:.-  - 


A    COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  89 

been  pressed  close,  and  evidently  had  not  the  slightest 
idea  of  putting  herself  of  her  own  free  will  within  the 
reach  of  the  pack,  which  was  now  frantically  baying  at 
e  foot  of  the  tree.  I  shot  her  through  the  heart.  As 
the  bullet  struck  she  climbed  up  through  the  branches 
with  great  agility  for  six  or  eight  feet;  then  her  muscles 
relaxed,  and  down  she  came  with  a  thud,  nearly  burying 
herself  in  the  snow.  Little  Skip  was  one  of  the  first  dogs 
to  seize  her  as  she  came  down;  and  in  another  moment 
he  literally  disappeared  under  the  hounds  as  they  piled 
on  the  bear.  As  soon  as  possible  we  got  off  the  skin  and 
pushed  campward  at  a  good  gait,  for  we  were  a  long 
way  off.  Just  at  nightfall  we  came  out  on  a  bluff  from 
which  we  could  overlook  the  rushing,  swirling  brown 
torrent,  on  the  farther  bank  of  which  the  tents  were 
pitched. 

The  stomach  of  this  bear  contained  nothing  but  buds. 
Like  the  other  shes  killed  on  this  trip,  she  was  accom- 
panied by  her  yearling  young,  but  had  no  newly  born 
cub;  sometimes  bear  breed  only  every  other  year,  but 
I  have  found  the  mother  accompanied  not  only  by  her 
cub  but  by  her  young  of  the  year  before.  The  yearling 
also  had  nothing  but  buds  in  its  stomach.  When  its  skin 
was  taken  off,  Stewart  looked  at  it,  shook  his  head,  and 
turning  to  Lambert  said  solemnly,  "  Alex.,  that  skin  isn't 
big  enough  to  use  for  anything  but  a  doily."  From  that 
time  until  the  end  of  the  hunt  the  yearlings  were  only 
known  as  "  doily  bears." 

Next  morning  we  again  went  out,  and  this  time  for 
twelve  hours  steadily,  in  the  saddle,  and  now  and  then 


90  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

on  foot.  Most  of  the  time  we  were  in  snow,  and  it  was 
extraordinary  that  the  horses  could  get  through  it  at  all, 
especially  in  working  up  the  steep  mountain-sides.  But 
until  it  got  so  deep  that  they  actually  floundered — that  is, 
so  long  as  they  could  get  their  legs  down  to  the  bottom — 
I  found  that  they  could  travel  much  faster  than  I  could. 
On  this  day  some  twenty  good-natured,  hard-riding 
young  fellows  from  the  ranches  within  a  radius  of  a 
dozen  miles  had  joined  our  party  to  "  see  the  President 
kill  a  bear."  They  were  a  cheerful  and  eagerly  friendly 
crowd,  as  hardy  as  so  many  young  moose,  and  utterly  fear- 
less horsemen;  one  of  them  rode  his  wild,  nervous  horse 
bareback,  because  it  had  bucked  so  when  he  tried  to  put 
the  saddle  on  it  that  morning  that  he  feared  he  would 
get  left  behind,  and  so  abandoned  the  saddle  outright. 
Whenever  they  had  a  chance  they  all  rode  at  headlong 
speed,  paying  no  heed  to  the  slope  of  the  mountain-side 
or  the  character  of  the  ground.  In  the  deep  snow  they 
did  me  a  real  service,  for  of  course  they  had  to  ride 
their  horses  single  file  through  the  drifts,  and  by  the  time 
my  turn  came  we  had  a  good  trail. 

After  a  good  deal  of  beating  to  and  fro,  we  found 
where  an  old  she-bear  with  two  yearlings  had  crossed  a 
hill  during  the  night  and  put  the  hounds  on  their  tracks. 
Johnny  and  Jake,  with  one  or  two  of  the  cowboys,  fol- 
lowed the  hounds  over  the  exceedingly  difficult  hillside 
where  the  trail  led;  or  rather,  they  tried  to  follow  them, 
for  the  hounds  speedily  got  clear  away,  as  there  were 
many  places  where  they  could  run  on  the  crust  of  the 
snow,  in  which  the  horses  wallowed  almost  helpless.  The 


A    DOILY    BEAR 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1905,  by  Alexander  Lambert,  M.D. 


A   COLORADO    BEAR   HUNT  91 

rest  of  us  went  down  to  the  valley,  where  the  snow  was 
light  and  the  going  easier.  The  bear  had  travelled  hither 
and  thither  through  the  woods  on  the  sidehill,  and  the 
dogs  became  scattered.  Moreover,  they  jumped  sev- 
eral deer,  and  four  or  five  of  the  young  dogs  took  after 
one  of  the  latter.  Finally,  however,  the  rest  of  the  pack 
put  up  the  three  bears.  We  had  an  interesting  glimpse 
of  the  chase  as  the  bears  quartered  up  across  an  open 
spot  of  the  hillside.  The  hounds  were  but  a  short  distance 
behind  them,  strung  out  in  a  long  string,  the  more  power- 
ful, those  which  could  do  best  in  the  snow-bucking,  tak- 
ing the  lead.  We  pushed  up  the  mountain-side  after 
them,  horse  after  horse  getting  down  in  the  snow,  and 
speedily  heard  the  redoubled  clamor  which  told  us  that 
something  had  been  treed.  It  was  half  an  hour  before 
we  could  make  our  way  to  the  tree,  a  spruce,  in  which 
the  two  yearlings  had  taken  refuge,  while  around  the 
bottom  the  entire  pack  was  gathered,  crazy  with  excite- 
ment. We  could  not  take  the  yearlings  alive,  both  be- 
cause we  lacked  the  means  of  carrying  them,  and  because 
we  were  anxious  to  get  after  the  old  bear.  We  could 
not  leave  them  where  they  were,  because  it  would  have 
been  well-nigh  impossible  to  get  the  dogs  away,  and  be- 
cause, even  if  we  had  succeeded  in  getting  them  away, 
they  would  not  have  run  any  other  trail  as  long  as  they 
knew  the  yearlings  were  in  the  tree.  It  was  therefore 
out  of  the  question  to  leave  them  unharmed,  as  we  should 
have  been  glad  to  do,  and  Lambert  killed  them  both  with 
his  revolver;  the  one  that  was  first  hit  immediately  biting 
its  brother.  The  ranchmen  took  them  home  to  eat. 


92  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

The  hounds  were  immediately  put  on  the  trail  of  the 
old  one  and  disappeared  over  the  snow.  In  a  few  minutes 
we  followed.  It  was  heavy  work  getting  up  the  moun- 
tain-side through  the  drifts,  but  once  on  top  we  made  our 
way  down  a  nearly  bare  spur,  and  then  turned  to  the 
right,  scrambled  a  couple  of  miles  along  a  slippery  side- 
hill,  and  halted.  Below  us  lay  a  great  valley,  on  the 
farther  side  of  which  a  spruce  forest  stretched  up  toward 
the  treeless  peaks.  Snow  covered  even  the  bottom  of  the 
valley,  and  lay  deep  and  solid  in  the  spruce  forest  on  the 
mountain-side.  The  hounds  were  in  full  cry,  evidently 
on  a  hot  trail,  and  we  caught  glimpses  of  them  far  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  valley,  crossing  little  open  glades  in 
the  spruce  timber.  If  the  crust  was  hard  they  scattered 
out.  Where  it  was  at  all  soft  they  ran  in  single  file.  We 
worked  our  way  down  toward  them,  and  on  reaching  the 
bottom  of  the  valley,  went  up  it  as  fast  as  the  snow  would 
allow.  Finally  we  heard  the  pack  again  barking  treed 
and  started  toward  them.  They  had  treed  the  bear  far 
up  the  mountain-side  in  the  thick  spruce  timber,  and  a 
short  experiment  showed  us  that  the  horses  could  not 
possibly  get  through  the  snow.  Accordingly,  of!  we 
jumped  and  went  toward  the  sound  on  foot,  all  the  young 
ranchmen  and  cowboys  rushing  ahead,  and  thereby  again 
making  me  an  easy  trail.  On  the  way  to  the  tree  the  rider 
of  the  bareback  horse  pounced  on  a  snowshoe  rabbit 
which  was  crouched  under  a  bush  and  caught  it  with  his 
hands.  It  was  half  an  hour  before  we  reached  the  tree, 
a  big  spruce,  up  which  the  bear  had  gone  to  a  height  of 
some  forty  feet.  I  broke  her  neck  with  a  single  bullet. 


A    COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  93 

She  was  smaller  than  the  one  I  had  shot  the  day  before, 
but  full  grown.  In  her  stomach,  as  in  those  of  the  two 
yearlings,  there  were  buds  of  rose-bushes  and  quaking 
aspens.  One  yearling  had  also  swallowed  a  mouse.  It 
was  a  long  ride  to  camp,  and  darkness  had  fallen  by  the 
time  we  caught  the  gleam  from  the  lighted  tents,  across 
the  dark  stream. 

With  neither  of  these  last  two  bear  had  there  been  any 
call  for  prowess ;  my  part  was  merely  to  kill  the  bear  dead 
at  the  first  shot,  for  the  sake  of  the  pack.  But  the  days 
were  very  enjoyable,  nevertheless.  It  was  good  fun  to 
be  twelve  hours  in  the  saddle  in  such  wild  and  beautiful 
country,  to  look  at  and  listen  to  the  hounds  as  they 
worked,  and  finally  to  see  the  bear  treed  and  looking 
down  at  the  maddened  pack  baying  beneath. 

For  the  next  two  or  three  days  I  was  kept  in  camp 
by  a  touch  of  Cuban  fever.  On  one  of  these  days  Lam- 
bert enjoyed  the  longest  hunt  we  had  on  the  trip,  after 
an  old  she-bear  and  three  yearlings.  The  yearlings  treed 
one  by  one,  each  of  course  necessitating  a  stoppage,  and 
it  was  seven  in  the  evening  before  the  old  bear  at  last  went 
up  a  cottonwood  and  was  shot;  she  was  only  wounded, 
however,  and  in  the  fight  she  crippled  Johnny's  Rowdy 
before  she  was  killed.  When  the  hunters  reached  camp 
it  was  thirteen  hours  since  they  had  left  it.  The  old  bear 
was  a  very  light  brown;  the  first  yearling  was  reddish- 
brown,  the  second  light  yellowish-brown,  the  third  dark 
black-brown,  though  all  were  evidently  of  the  same  litter. 

Following  this  came  a  spell  of  bad  weather,  snow- 
storm and  blizzard  steadily  succeeding  one  another. 


94  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

This  lasted  until  my  holiday  was  over.  Some  days  we 
had  to  stay  in  camp.  On  other  days  we  hunted ;  but  there 
was  three  feet  of  new  snow  on  the  summits  and  foothills, 
making  it  difficult  to  get  about.  We  saw  no  more  bear, 
and,  indeed,  no  more  bear-tracks  that  were  less  than  two 
or  three  weeks  old. 

We  killed  a  couple  of  bobcats.  The  chase  of  one  was 
marked  by  several  incidents.  We  had  been  riding 
through  a  blizzard  on  the  top  of  a  plateau,  and  were  glad 
to  plunge  down  into  a  steep  sheer-sided  valley.  By  the 
time  we  reached  the  bottom  there  was  a  lull  in  the  storm 
and  we  worked  our  way  with  considerable  difficulty 
through  the  snow,  down  timber,  and  lava  rock,  toward 
Divide  Creek.  After  a  while  the  valley  widened  a  little, 
spruce  and  aspens  fringing  the  stream  at  the  bottom  while 
the  sides  were  bare.  Here  we  struck  a  fresh  bobcat  trail 
leading  off  up  one  of  the  mountain-sides.  The  hounds 
followed  it  nearly  to  the  top,  then  turned  and  came  down 
again,  worked  through  the  timber  in  the  bottom,  and 
struck  out  on  the  hillside  opposite.  Suddenly  we  saw  the 
bobcat  running  ahead  of  them  and  doubling  and  circling. 
A  few  minutes  afterward  the  hounds  followed  the  trail 
to  the  creek  bottom  and  then  began  to  bark  treed.  But 
on  reaching  the  point  we  found  there  was  no  cat  in  the 
tree,  although  the  dogs  seemed  certain  that  there  was; 
and  Johnny  and  Jake  speedily  had  them  again  running 
on  the  trail.  After  making  its  way  for  some  distance 
through  the  bottom,  the  cat  had  again  taken  to  the  side- 
hill,  and  the  hounds  went  after  it  hard.  Again  they  went 
nearly  to  the  top,  again  they  streamed  down  to  the  bottom 


THE   BIG    BEAR 
From  a  photograph  by  Philip  B.  Stewart 


A   COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  95 

and  crossed  the  creek.  Soon  afterward  we  saw  the  cat 
ahead  of  them.  For  the  moment  it  threw  them  off  the 
track  by  making  a  circle  and  galloping  around  close  to 
the  rearmost  hounds.  It  then  made  for  the  creek  bottom, 
where  it  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  tall  aspen.  The  hounds 
soon  picked  up  the  trail  again,  and  followed  it  full  cry; 
but  unfortunately  just  before  they  reached  where  it  had 
treed  they  ran  on  to  a  porcupine.  When  we  reached  the 
foot  of  the  aspen,  in  the  top  of  which  the  bobcat  crouched, 
with  most  of  the  pack  baying  beneath,  we  found  the  por- 
cupine dead  and  half  a  dozen  dogs  with  their  muzzles 
and  throats  filled  full  of  quills.  Before  doing  anything 
with  the  cat  it  was  necessary  to  take  these  quills  out.  One 
of  the  terriers,  which  always  found  porcupines  an  irre- 
sistible attraction,  was  a  really  extraordinary  sight,  so 
thickly  were  the  quills  studded  over  his  face  and  chest. 
But  a  big  hound  was  in  even  worse  condition;  the  quills 
were  stuck  in  abundance  into  his  nose,  lips,  cheeks,  and 
tongue,  and  in  the  roof  of  his  mouth  they  were  almost 
as  thick  as  bristles  in  a  brush.  Only  by  use  of  pincers  was 
it  possible  to  rid  these  two  dogs  of  the  quills,  and  it  was 
a  long  and  bloody  job.  The  others  had  suffered  less. 

The  dogs  seemed  to  have  no  sympathy  with  one  an- 
other, and  apparently  all  that  the  rest  of  the  pack  felt  was 
that  they  were  kept  a  long  time  waiting  for  the  cat.  They 
never  stopped  baying  for  a  minute,  and  Shorty,  as  was  his 
habit,  deliberately  bit  great  patches  of  bark  from  the 
aspens,  to  show  his  impatience;  for  the  tree  in  which  the 
cat  stood  was  not  one  which  he  could  climb.  After  at- 
tending to  the  porcupine  dogs  one  of  the  men  climbed 


96  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  tree  and  with  a  stick  pushed  out  the  cat.  It  dropped 
down  through  the  branches  forty  or  fifty  feet,  but  was  so 
quick  in  starting  and  dodging  that  it  actually  rushed 
through  the  pack,  crossed  the  stream,  and,  doubling  and 
twisting,  was  off  up  the  creek  through  the  timber.  It 
ran  cunning,  and  in  a  minute  or  two  lay  down  under  a 
bush  and  watched  the  hounds  as  they  went  by,  overrun- 
ning its  trail.  Then  it  took  off  up  the  hillside;  but  the 
hounds  speedily  picked  up  its  track,  and  running  in  single 
file,  were  almost  on  it.  Then  the  cat  turned  down  hill, 
but  too  late,  for  it  was  overtaken  within  fifty  yards.  This 
ended  our  hunting. 

One  Sunday  we  rode  down  some  six  miles  from  camp 
to  a  little  blue  school-house  and  attended  service.  The 
preacher  was  in  the  habit  of  riding  over  every  alternate 
Sunday  from  Rifle,  a  little  town  twenty  or  twenty-five 
miles  away;  and  the  ranchmen  with  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, some  on  horseback,  some  in  wagons,  had  gathered 
from  thirty  miles  round  to  attend  the  service.  The  crowd 
was  so  large  that  the  exercises  had  to  take  place  in  the 
open  air,  and  it  was  pleasant  to  look  at  the  strong  frames 
and  rugged,  weather-beaten  faces  of  the  men;  while  as 
for  the  women,  one  respected  them  even  more  than  the 
men. 

In  spite  of  the  snow-storms  spring  was  coming;  some 
of  the  trees  were  beginning  to  bud  and  show  green,  more 
and  more  flowers  were  in  bloom,  and  bird  life  was  stead- 
ily increasing.  In  the  bushes  by  the  streams  the  hand- 
some white-crowned  sparrows  and  green-tailed  towhees 
were  in  full  song,  making  attractive  music ;  although  the 


A    COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  97 

song  of  neither  can  rightly  be  compared  in  point  of 
plaintive  beauty  with  that  of  the  white-throated  sparrow, 
which,  except  some  of  the  thrushes,  and  perhaps  the  win- 
ter wren,  is  the  sweetest  singer  of  the  Northeastern  forests. 
The  spurred  towhees  were  very  plentiful ;  and  one  morn- 
ing a  willow-thrush  sang  among  the  willows  like  a  veery. 
Both  the  crested  jays  and  the  Woodhouse  jays  came 
around  camp.  Lower  down  the  Western  meadow  larks 
were  singing  beautifully,  and  vesper  finches  were  abun- 
dant. Say's  flycatcher,  a  very  attractive  bird,  with  pretty, 
soft-colored  plumage,  continually  uttering  a  plaintive 
single  note,  and  sometimes  a  warbling  twitter,  flitted 
about  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  little  log  ranch  houses. 
Gangs  of  blackbirds  visited  the  corrals.  I  saw  but  one 
song  sparrow,  and  curiously  enough,  though  I  think  it 
was  merely  an  individual  peculiarity,  this  particular  bird 
had  a  song  entirely  different  from  any  I  have  heard  from 
the  familiar  Eastern  bird — always  a  favorite  of  mine. 

While  up  in  the  mountains  hunting,  we  twice  came 
upon  owls,  which  were  rearing  their  families  in  the  de- 
serted nests  of  the  red-tailed  hawk.  One  was  a  long-eared 
owl,  and  the  other  a  great  horned  owl,  of  the  pale  Western 
variety.  Both  were  astonishingly  tame,  and  we  found  it 
difficult  to  make  them  leave  their  nests,  which  were  in 
the  tops  of  cottonwood  trees. 

On  the  last  day  we  rode  down  to  where  Glenwood 
Springs  lies,  hemmed  in  by  lofty  mountain  chains,  which 
are  riven  in  sunder  by  sheer-sided,  cliff-walled  canyons. 
As  we  left  ever  farther  behind  us  the  wintry  desolation 
of  our  high  hunting  grounds  we  rode  into  full  spring. 


98  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

The  green  of  the  valley  was  a  delight  to  the  eye;  bird 
songs  sounded  on  every  side,  from  the  fields  and  from  the 
trees  and  bushes  beside  the  brooks  and  irrigation  ditches; 
the  air  was  sweet  with  the  spring-time  breath  of  many 
budding  things.  The  sarvice  bushes  were  white  with 
bloom,  like  shadblow  on  the  Hudson ;  the  blossoms  of  the 
Oregon  grape  made  yellow  mats  on  the  ground.  We  saw 
the  chunky  Say's  ground  squirrel,  looking  like  a  big  chip- 
munk, with  on  each  side  a  conspicuous  white  stripe  edged 
with  black.  In  one  place  we  saw  quite  a  large  squirrel, 
grayish,  with  red  on  the  lower  back.  I  suppose  it  was 
only  a  pine  squirrel,  but  it  looked  like  one  of  the  gray 
squirrels  of  southern  Colorado.  Mountain  mockers  and 
the  handsome,  bold  Arkansaw  king  birds  were  numerous. 
The  black-tail  sage  sparrow  was  conspicuous  in  the  sage- 
brush, and  high  among  the  cliffs  the  white-throated  swifts 
were  soaring.  There  were  numerous  warblers,  among 
which  I  could  only  make  out  the  black-throated  gray, 
Audubon's,  and  McGillivray's.  In  Glenwood  Springs 
itself  the  purple  finches,  house  finches,  and  Bullock's 
orioles  were  in  full  song.  Flocks  of  siskins  passed  with 
dipping  flight.  In  one  rapid  little  stream  we  saw  a  water 
ousel.  Humming-birds — I  suppose  the  broad-tailed — 
were  common,  and  as  they  flew  they  made,  intermittently 
and  almost  rhythmically,  a  curious  metallic  sound;  seem- 
ingly it  was  done  with  their  wings. 

But  the  thing  that  interested  me  most  in  the  way  of 
bird  life  was  something  I  saw  in  Denver.  To  my  delight 
I  found  that  the  huge  hotel  at  which  we  took  dinner  was 
monopolized  by  the  pretty,  musical  house  finches,  to  the 


A    COLORADO    BEAR    HUNT  99 

exclusion  of  the  ordinary  city  sparrows.  The  latter  are 
all  too  plentiful  in  Denver,  as  in  every  other  city,  and, 
as  always,  are  noisy,  quarrelsome — in  short,  thoroughly 
unattractive  and  disreputable.  The  house  finch,  on  the 
contrary,  is  attractive  in  looks,  in  song,  and  in  ways.  It 
was  delightful  to  hear  the  males  singing,  often  on  the 
wing.  They  went  right  up  to  the  top  stories  of  the  high 
hotel,  and  nested  under  the  eaves  and  in  the  cornices. 
The  cities  of  the  Southwestern  States  are  to  be  con- 
gratulated on  having  this  spirited,  attractive  little  song- 
ster as  a  familiar  dweller  around  their  houses  and  in 
their  gardens. 


CHAPTER    III 

WOLF-COURSING 

ON  April  eighth,  nineteen  hundred  and  five,  we  left 
the  town  of  Frederick,  Oklahoma,  for  a  few  days*  coyote 
coursing  in  the  Comanche  Reserve.  Lieut. -Gen.  S.  B. 
M.  Young,  U.  S.  A.,  retired,  Lieutenant  Fortescue,  U. 
S.  A.,  formerly  of  my  regiment,  and  Dr.  Alexander 
Lambert,  of  New  York,  were  with  me.  We  were  the 
guests  of  Colonel  Cecil  Lyon,  of  Texas,  of  Sloan  Simp- 
son, also  of  Texas,  and  formerly  of  my  regiment,  and 
of  two  old-style  Texas  cattlemen,  Messrs.  Burnett 
and  Wagner,  who  had  leased  great  stretches  of  wire- 
fenced  pasture  from  the  Comanches  and  Kiowas;  and 
I  cannot  sufficiently  express  my  appreciation  of  the 
kindness  of  these  my  hosts.  Burnett's  brand,  the 
Four  Sixes,  has  been  owned  by  him  for  forty  years. 
Both  of  them  had  come  to  this  country  thirty  years 
before,  in  the  days  of  the  buffalo,  when  all  game  was 
very  plentiful  and  the  Indians  were  still  on  the  war- 
path. Several  other  ranchmen  were  along,  including 
John  Abernethy,  of  Tesca,  Oklahoma,  a  professional 
wolf  hunter.  There  were  also  a  number  of  cow- 
hands of  both  Burnett  and  Wagner;  among  them  were 
two  former  riders  for  the  Four  Sixes,  Fi  Taylor  and 
Uncle  Ed  Gillis,  who  seemed  to  make  it  their  special 
mission  to  see  that  everything  went  right  with  me. 


Q  *r 

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WOLF-COURSING  101 

Furthermore  there  was  Captain  McDonald  of  the  Texas 
Rangers,  a  game  and  true  man,  whose  name  was  one  of 
terror  to  outlaws  and  violent  criminals  of  all  kinds ;  and 
finally  there  was  Quanah  Parker,  the  Comanche  chief, 
in  his  youth  a  bitter  foe  of  the  whites,  now  painfully 
teaching  his  people  to  travel  the  white  man's  stony  road. 

We  drove  out  some  twenty  miles  to  where  camp  was 
pitched  in  a  bend  of  Deep  Red  Creek,  which  empties 
into  the  Red  River  of  the  South.  Cottonwood,  elm,  and 
pecans  formed  a  belt  of  timber  along  the  creek;  we  had 
good  water,  the  tents  were  pitched  on  short,  thick  grass, 
and  everything  was  in  perfect  order.  The  fare  was  de- 
licious. Altogether  it  was  an  ideal  camp,  and  the  days 
we  passed  there  were  also  ideal.  Cardinals  and  mocking- 
birds— the  most  individual  and  delightful  of  all  birds  in 
voice  and  manner — sang  in  the  woods ;  and  the  beautiful, 
many-tinted  fork-tailed  fly-catchers  were  to  be  seen  now 
and  then,  perched  in  trees  or  soaring  in  curious  zigzags, 
chattering  loudly. 

In  chasing  the  coyote  only  greyhounds  are  used,  and 
half  a  dozen  different  sets  of  these  had  been  brought  to 
camp.  Those  of  Wagner,  the  "  Big  D  "  dogs,  as  his  cow- 
punchers  called  them,  were  handled  by  Bony  Moore, 
who,  with  Tom  Burnett,  the  son  of  our  host  Burke  Bur- 
nett, took  the  lead  in  feats  of  daring  horsemanship,  even 
in  that  field  of  daring  horsemen.  Bevins-  had  brought 
both  greyhounds  and  rough-haired  staghoiihds  from  his1 
Texas  ranch.  So  had  Cecil  Lyon,  andHhdtigb  His'  aogsr 
had  chiefly  been  used  in  coursing  the  black-tailed  Texas 
jack-rabbit,  they  took  naturally  to  the  coyote  chases. 


102  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

Finally  there  were  Abernethy's  dogs,  which,  together  with 
their  master,  performed  the  feats  I  shall  hereafter  relate. 
Abernethy  has  a  homestead  of  his  own  not  far  from  Fred- 
erick, and  later  I  was  introduced  to  his  father,  an  old 
Confederate  soldier,  and  to  his  sweet  and  pretty  wife,  and 
their  five  little  children.  He  had  run  away  with  his  wife 
when  they  were  nineteen  and  sixteen  respectively;  but  the 
match  had  turned  out  a  happy  one.  Both  were  partic- 
ularly fond  of  music,  including  the  piano,  horn,  and  vio- 
lin, and  they  played  duets  together.  General  Young, 
whom  the  Comanches  called  "  War  Bonnet,"  went  in  a 
buggy  with  Burke  Burnett,  and  as  Burnett  invariably 
followed  the  hounds  at  full  speed  in  his  buggy,  and 
usually  succeeded  in  seeing  most  of  the  chase,  I  felt  that 
the  buggy  men  really  encountered  greater  hazards  than 
anyone  else.  It  was  a  thoroughly  congenial  company  all 
through.  The  weather  was  good;  we  were  in  the  saddle 
from  morning  until  night;  and  our  camp  was  in  all  re- 
spects all  that  a  camp  should  be ;  so  how  could  we  help 
enjoying  ourselves? 

The  coursing  was  done  on  the  flats  and  great  rolling 
prairies  which  stretched  north  from  our  camp  toward  the 
Wichita  Mountains  and  south  toward  the  Red  River. 
There  was  a  certain  element  of  risk  in  the  gallops,  be- 
cause the  whole  country  was  one  huge  prairie-dog  town, 
the  praLri^-dctgs  being  so  numerous  that  the  new  towns 
and  '  the*  abandoned  towns  were  continuous  with  one 
another  in  every  direction.  Practically  every  run  we 
had  was  through  these  prairie-dog  towns,  varied  occa- 
sionally by  creeks  and  washouts.  But  as  we  always  ran 


WOLF-COURSING 


103 


scattered  out,  the  wonderfully  quick  cow-ponies,  brought 
up  in  this  country  and  spending  all  their  time  among  the 
prairie-dog  towns,  were  able,  even  while  running  at 
headlong  speed,  to  avoid  the  holes  with  a  cleverness  that 
was  simply  marvellous.  During  our  hunt  but  one  horse 
stepped  in  a  hole;  he  turned  a  complete  somerset,  though 
neither  he  nor  his  rider  was  hurt.  Stunted  mesquite 
bushes  grew  here  and  there  in  the  grass,  and  there  was 
cactus.  As  always  in  prairie-dog  towns,  there  were  bur- 
rowing owls  and  rattlesnakes.  We  had  to  be  on  our 
guard  that  the  dogs  did  not  attack  the  latter.  Once  we 
thought  a  greyhound  was  certainly  bitten.  It  was  a  very 
fast  blue  bitch,  which  seized  the  rattler  and  literally 
shook  it  to  pieces.  The  rattler  struck  twice  at  the  bitch, 
but  so  quick  were  the  bitch's  movements  that  she  was  not 
hit  either  time,  and  in  a  second  the  snake  was  not  merely 
dead,  but  in  pieces.  We  usually  killed  the  rattlers  with 
either  our  quirts  or  ropes.  One  which  I  thus  killed  was 
over  five  feet  long. 

By  rights  there  ought  to  have  been  carts  in  which  the 
greyhounds  could  be  drawn  until  the  coyotes  were  sighted, 
but  there  were  none,  and  the  greyhounds  simply  trotted 
along  beside  the  horses.  All  of  them  were  fine  animals, 
and  almost  all  of  them  of  recorded  pedigree.  Coyotes 
have  sharp  teeth  and  bite  hard,  while  greyhounds  have 
thin  skins,  and  many  of  them  were  cut  in  the  worries. 
This  was  due  to  the  fact  that  only  two  or  three  of  them 
seized  by  the  throat,  the  others  taking  hold  behind,  which 
of  course  exposed  them  to  retaliation.  Few  of  them 
would  have  been  of  much  use  in  stopping  a  big  wolf. 


io4  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

Abernethy's  hounds,  however,  though  they  could  not  kill 
a  big  wolf,  would  stop  it,  permitting  their  owner  to  seize 
it  exactly  as  he  seized  coyotes,  as  hereafter  described. 
He  had  killed  but  a  few  of  the  big  gray  wolves;  one 
weighed  ninety-seven  pounds.  He  said  that  there  were 
gradations  from  this  down  to  the  coyotes.  A  few  days 
before  our  arrival,  after  a  very  long  chase,  he  had  cap- 
tured a  black  wolf,  weighing  between  fifty  and  sixty 
pounds. 

These  Southern  coyotes  or  prairie-wolves  are  only 
about  one-third  the  size  of  the  big  gray  timber  wolves  of 
the  Northern  Rockies.  They  are  too  small  to  meddle 
with  full-grown  horses  and  cattle,  but  pick  up  young 
calves  and  kill  sheep,  as  well  as  any  small  domesticated 
animal  that  they  can  get  at.  The  big  wolves  flee  from 
the  neighborhood  of  anything  like  close  settlements,  but 
coyotes  hang  around  the  neighborhood  of  man  much  more 
persistently.  They  show  a  fox-like  cunning  in  catching 
rabbits,  prairie-dogs,  gophers,  and  the  like.  After  night- 
fall they  are  noisy,  and  their  melancholy  wailing  and  yell- 
ing are  familiar  sounds  to  all  who  pass  over  the  plains. 
The  young  are  brought  forth  in  holes  in  cut  banks  or 
similar  localities.  Within  my  own  experience  I  have 
known  of  the  finding  of  but  two  families.  In  one  there 
was  but  a  single  family  of  five  cubs  and  one  old  animal, 
undoubtedly  the  mother;  in  the  other  case  there  were  ten 
or  eleven  cubs  and  two  old  females  which  had  apparently 
shared  the  burrow  or  cave,  though  living  in  separate 
pockets.  In  neither  case  was  any  full-grown  male  coyote 
found  in  the  neighborhood;  as  regards  these  particular 


WOLF-COURSING  105 

litters,  the  father  seemingly  had  nothing  to  do  with  tak- 
ing care  of  or  supporting  the  family.  I  am  not  able  to 
say  whether  this  was  accidental  or  whether  it  is  a  rule, 
that  only  the  mother  lives  with  and  takes  care  of  the  lit- 
ter; I  have  heard  contrary  statements  about  the  matter 
from  hunters  who  should  know.  Unfortunately  I  have 
learned  from  long  experience  that  it  is  only  exceptional 
hunters  who  can  be  trusted  to  give  accurate  descriptions 
of  the  habits  of  any  beast,  save  such  as  are  connected  with 
its  chase. 

Coyotes  are  sharp,  wary,  knowing  creatures,  and  on 
most  occasions  take  care  to  keep  out  of  harm's  way.  But 
individuals  among  them  have  queer  freaks.  On  one  oc- 
casion while  Sloan  Simpson  was  on  the  round-up  he 
waked  at  night  to  find  something  on  the  foot  of  his 
bed,  its  dark  form  indistinctly  visible  against  the  white 
tarpaulin.  He  aroused  a  friend  to  ask  if  it  could  be  a 
dog.  While  they  were  cautiously  endeavoring  to  find  out 
what  it  was,  it  jumped  up  and  ran  off;  they  then  saw  that 
it  was  a  coyote.  In  a  short  time  it  returned  again,  coming 
out  of  the  darkness  toward  one  of  the  cowboys  who 
was  awake,  and  the  latter  shot  it,  fearing  it  might  have 
hydrophobia.  But  I  doubt  this,  as  in  such  case  it  would 
not  have  curled  up  and  gone  to  sleep  on  Simpson's  bed- 
ding. Coyotes  are  subject  to  hydrophobia,  and  when 
under  the  spell  of  the  dreadful  disease  will  fearlessly  at- 
tack men.  In  one  case  of  which  I  know,  a  mad  coyote 
coming  into  camp  sprang  on  a  sleeping  man  who  was 
rolled  in  his  bedding  and  bit  and  worried  the  bedding  in 
the  effort  to  get  at  him.  Two  other  men  hastened  to  his 


106  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

rescue,  and  the  coyote  first  attacked  them  and  then  sud- 
denly sprang  aside  and  again  worried  the  bedding,  by 
which  time  one  of  them  was  able  to  get  in  a  shot  and 
killed  it.  All  coyotes,  like  big  wolves,  die  silently  and 
fight  to  the  last.  I  had  never  weighed  any  coyotes  until 
on  this  trip.  I  weighed  the  twelve  which  I  myself  saw 
caught,  and  they  ran  as  follows:  male,  thirty  pounds; 
female,  twenty-eight  pounds;  female,  thirty-six  pounds; 
male,  thirty-two  pounds;  male,  thirty-four  pounds;  fe- 
male, thirty  pounds;  female,  twenty-seven  pounds;  male, 
thirty-two  pounds;  male,  twenty-nine  pounds;  young 
male,  twenty-two  pounds ;  male,  twenty-nine  pounds ;  fe- 
male, twenty-seven  pounds.  Disregarding  the  young 
male,  this  makes  an  average  of  just  over  thirty  pounds.1 
Except  the  heaviest  female,  they  were  all  gaunt  and  in 
splendid  running  trim;  but  then  I  do  not  remember  ever 
seeing  a  really  fat  coyote. 

The  morning  of  the  first  day  of  our  hunt  dawned 
bright  and  beautiful,  the  air  just  cool  enough  to  be  pleas- 
ant. Immediately  after  breakfast  we  jogged  of!  on  horse- 
back, Tom  Burnett  and  Bony  Moore  in  front,  with  six  or 
eight  greyhounds  slouching  alongside,  while  Burke  Bur- 
nett and  "  War  Bonnet "  drove  behind  us  in  the  buggy. 
I  was  mounted  on  one  of  Tom  Burnett's  favorites,  a  beau- 
tiful Kiowa  pony.  The  chuck  wagon,  together  with  the 

1  I  sent  the  skins  and  skulls  to  Dr.  Hart  Merriam,  the  head  of  the  Bio- 
logical Survey.  He  wrote  me  about  them  :  "All  but  one  are  the  plains  coyote, 
Cams  nebracensis.  They  are  not  perfectly  typical,  but  are  near  enough  for  all 
practical  purposes.  The  exception  is  a  yearling  pup  of  a  much  larger  species. 
Whether  this  is/rustor  I  dare  not  say  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge  of  the 
group. " 


WOLF-COURSING  107 

relay  of  greyhounds  to  be  used  in  the  afternoon,  was  to 
join  us  about  midday  at  an  appointed  place  where  there 
was  a  pool  of  water. 

We  shuffled  along,  strung  out  in  an  irregular  line, 
across  a  long  flat,  in  places  covered  with  bright-green 
wild  onions;  and  then  up  a  gentle  slope  where  the  stunted 
mesquite  grew,  while  the  prairie-dogs  barked  spasmod- 
ically as  we  passed  their  burrows.  The  low  crest,  if  such 
it  could  be  called,  of  the  slope  was  reached  only  some 
twenty  minutes  after  we  left  camp,  and  hardly  had  we 
started  down  the  other  side  than  two  coyotes  were  spied 
three  or  four  hundred  yards  in  front.  Immediately 
horses  and  dogs  were  after  them  at  a  headlong,  breakneck 
run,  the  coyotes  edging  to  the  left  where  the  creek  bot- 
tom, with  its  deep  banks  and  narrow  fringes  of  timber, 
was  about  a  mile  distant.  The  little  wolves  knew  their 
danger  and  ran  their  very  fastest,  while  the  long  dogs 
stretched  out  after  them,  gaining  steadily.  It  was  evident 
the  chase  would  be  a  short  one,  and  there  was  no  need  to 
husband  the  horses,  so  every  man  let  his  pony  go  for 
all  there  was  in  him.  At  such  a  speed,  and  especially 
going  down  hill,  there  was  not  the  slightest  use  in  trying 
to  steer  clear  of  the  prairie-dog  holes;  it  was  best  to  let 
the  veteran  cow-ponies  see  to  that  for  themselves.  They 
were  as  eager  as  their  riders,  and  on  we  dashed  at  full 
speed,  curving  to  the  left  toward  the  foot  of  the  slope; 
we  jumped  into  and  out  of  a  couple  of  broad,  shallow 
washouts,  as  we  tore  after  the  hounds,  now  nearing  their 
quarry.  The  rearmost  coyote  was  overtaken  just  at  the 
edge  of  the  creek;  the  foremost,  which  was  a  few  yards 


io8  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

in  advance,  made  good  its  escape,  as  all  the  dogs  promptly 
tackled  the  rearmost,  tumbling  it  over  into  a  rather  deep 
pool.  The  scuffling  and  splashing  told  us  what  was  going 
on,  and  we  reined  our  horses  short  up  at  the  brink  of 
the  cut  bank.  The  water  had  hampered  the  dogs  in  kill- 
ing their  quarry,  only  three  or  four  of  them  being  in  the 
pool  with  him;  and  of  those  he  had  seized  one  by  the 
nose  and  was  hanging  on  hard.  In  a  moment  one  of  the 
cowboys  got  hold  of  him,  dropped  a  noose  over  his  head, 
and  dragged  him  out  on  the  bank,  just  as  the  buggy  came 
rattling  up  at  full  gallop.  Burnett  and  the  general,  tak- 
ing advantage  of  the  curve  in  our  course,  had  driven 
across  the  chord  of  the  arc,  and  keeping  their  horses  at  a 
run,  had  seen  every  detail  of  the  chase  and  were  in  at  the 
death. 

In  a  few  minutes  the  coyote  was  skinned,  the  dogs 
rested,  and  we  were  jogging  on  once  more.  Hour  after 
hour  passed  by.  We  had  a  couple  more  runs,  but  in  each 
case  the  coyote  had  altogether  too  long  a  start  and  got 
away;  the  dogs  no  longer  being  as  fresh  as  they  had  been. 
As  a  rule,  although  there  are  exceptions,  if  the  grey- 
hounds cannot  catch  the  coyote  within  two  or  three  miles 
the  chances  favor  the  escape  of  the  little  wolf.  We  found 
that  if  the  wolf  had  more  than  half  a  mile  start  he  got 
away.  As  greyhounds  hunt  by  sight,  cut  banks  enable  the 
coyote  easily  to  throw  off  his  pursuers  unless  they  are 
fairly  close  up.  The  greyhounds  see  the  wolf  when  he  is 
far  off,  for  they  have  good  eyes;  but  in  the  chase,  if  the 
going  is  irregular,  they  tend  to  lose  him,  and  they  do  not 
depend  much  on  one  another  in  recovering  sight  of  him; 


WOLF-COURSING  1 09 

on  the  contrary,  the  dog  is  apt  to  quit  when  he  no  longer 
has  the  quarry  in  view. 

At  noon  we  joined  the  chuck  wagon  where  it  stood 
drawn  up  on  a  slope  of  the  treeless,  bushless  prairie;  and 
the  active  round-up  cook  soon  had  the  meal  ready.  It 
was  the  Four  Sixes  wagon,  the  brand  burned  into  the 
wood  of  the  chuck  box.  Where  does  a  man  take  more 
frank  enjoyment  in  his  dinner  than  at  the  tail  end  of  a 
chuck  wagon? 

Soon  after  eating  we  started  again,  having  changed 
horses  and  dogs.  I  was  mounted  on  a  Big  D  cow  pony, 
while  Lambert  had  a  dun-colored  horse,  hard  to  hold, 
but  very  tough  and  swift.  An  hour  or  so  after  leaving 
camp  we  had  a  four-mile  run  after  a  coyote,  which  finally 
got  away,  for  it  had  so  long  a  start  that  the  dogs  were 
done  out  by  the  time  they  came  within  fair  distance. 
They  stopped  at  a  little  prairie  pool,  some  of  them  lying 
or  standing  in  it,  panting  violently;  and  thus  we  found 
them  as  we  came  stringing  up  at  a  gallop.  After  they 
had  been  well  rested  we  started  toward  camp ;  but  we 
were  down  in  the  creek  bottom  before  we  saw  another 
coyote.  This  one  again  was  a  long  distance  ahead,  and 
I  did  not  suppose  there  was  much  chance  of  our  catching 
him;  but  away  all  the  dogs  and  all  the  riders  went  at 
the' usual  run,  and  catch  him  we  did,  because,  as  it  turned 
out,  the  "  morning  "  dogs,  which  were  with  the  wagon, 
had  spied  him  first  and  run  him  hard,  until  he  was  in 
sight  of  the  "  afternoon  "  dogs,  which  were  with  us.  I 
got  tangled  in  a  washout,  scrambled  out,  and  was  gallop- 
ing along,  watching  the  country  in  front,  when  Lambert 


no  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

passed  me  as  hard  as  he  could  go;  I  saw  him  disappear 
into  another  washout,  and  then  come  out  on  the  other 
side,  while  the  dogs  were  driving  the  coyote  at  an  angle 
down  toward  the  creek.  Pulling  short  to  the  right,  I  got 
through  the  creek,  hoping  the  coyote  would  cross,  and  the 
result  was  that  I  galloped  up  to  the  worry  almost  as  soon 
as  the  foremost  riders  from  the  other  side — a  piece  of 
good  fortune  for  which  I  had  only  luck  to  thank.  The 
hounds  caught  the  coyote  as  he  was  about  crossing  the 
creek.  From  this  point  it  was  but  a  short  distance  into 
camp. 

Again  next  morning  we  were  off  before  the  sun  had 
risen  high  enough  to  take  away  the  cool  freshness  from 
the  air.  This  day  we  travelled  several  miles  before  we 
saw  our  first  coyote.  It  was  on  a  huge,  gently  sloping 
stretch  of  prairie,  which  ran  down  to  the  creek  on  our 
right.  We  were  travelling  across  it  strung  out  in  line 
when  the  coyote  sprang  up  a  good  distance  ahead  of  the 
dogs.  They  ran  straight  away  from  us  at  first.  Then  I 
saw  the  coyote  swinging  to  the  right  toward  the  creek 
and  I  half-wheeled,  riding  diagonally  to  the  line  of  the 
chase.  This  gave  me  an  excellent  view  of  dogs  and  wolf, 
and  also  enabled  me  to  keep  nearly  abreast  of  them.  On 
this  particular  morning  the  dogs  were  Bevin's  grey- 
hounds and  staghounds.  From  where  the  dogs  started 
they  ran  about  three  miles,  catching  their  quarry  in  the 
flat  where  the  creek  circled  around  in  a  bend,  and  when 
it  was  not  fifty  yards  from  the  timber.  By  this  time  the 
puncher,  Bony  Moore,  had  passed  me,  most  of  the  other 
riders  having  been  so  far  to  the  left  when  the  run  began 


WOLF-COURSING  1 1 1 

that  they  were  unable  to  catch  up.  The  little  wolf  ran 
well,  and  the  greyhounds  had  about  reached  their  limit 
when  they  caught  up  with  it.  But  they  lasted  just  long 
enough  to  do  the  work.  A  fawn-colored  greyhound  and 
a  black  staghound  were  the  first  dogs  up.  The  stag- 
hound  tried  to  seize  the  coyote,  which  dodged  a  little  to 
one  side;  the  fawn-colored  greyhound  struck  and  threw 
it;  and  in  another  moment  the  other  dogs  were  up  and 
the  worry  began.  I  was  able  to  see  the  run  so  well,  be- 
cause Tom  Burnett  had  mounted  me  on  his  fine  roan 
cutting  horse.  We  sat  around  in  a  semicircle  on  the  grass 
until  the  dogs  had  been  breathed,  and  then  started  off 
again.  After  some  time  we  struck  another  coyote,  but 
rather  far  off,  and  this  time  the  dogs  were  not  fresh. 
After  running  two  or  three  miles  he  pulled  away  and  we 
lost  him,  the  dogs  refreshing  themselves  by  standing  and 
lying  in  a  shallow  prairie  pool. 

In  the  afternoon  we  again  rode  off,  and  this  time  Ab- 
ernethy,  on  his  white  horse,  took  the  lead,  his  greyhounds 
trotting  beside  him.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  rivalry 
among  the  various  owners  of  the  hounds  as  to  which  could 
do  best,  and  a  slight  inclination  among  the  cowboys  to 
be  jealous  of  Abernethy.  No  better  riders  could  be  im- 
agined than  these  same  cowboys,  and  their  greyhounds 
were  stanch  and  fast;  but  Abernethy,  on  his  tough  white 
horse,  not  only  rode  with  great  judgment,  but  showed 
a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  coyote,  and  by  his  own  ex- 
ertions greatly  assisted  his  hounds.  He  had  found  out 
in  his  long  experience  that  while  the  greyhounds  could 
outpace  a  coyote  in  a  two  or  three  mile  run,  they  would 


ii2  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

then  fall  behind;  but  that  after  going  eight  or  ten  miles, 
a  coyote  in  turn  became  exhausted,  and  if  he  had  been 
able  to  keep  his  hounds  going  until  that  time,  they  could, 
with  his  assistance,  then  stop  the  quarry. 

We  had  been  shogging  along  for  an  hour  or  more 
when  we  put  up  a  coyote  and  started  after  it.  I  was  rid- 
ing the  Big  D  pony  I  had  ridden  the  afternoon  before. 
It  was  a  good  and  stout  horse,  but  one  which  my  weight 
was  certain  to  distress  if  I  tried  to  go  too  fast  for  too 
long  a  time.  Moreover,  the  coyote  had  a  long  start,  and 
I  made  up  my  mind  that  he  would  either  get  away  or 
give  us  a  hard  run.  Accordingly,  as  the  cowboys  started 
off  at  their  usual  headlong  pace,  I  rode  behind  at  a  gal- 
lop, husbanding  my  horse.  For  a  mile  or  so  the  going 
was  very  rough,  up  over  and  down  stony  hills  and  among 
washouts.  Then  we  went  over  gently  rolling  country 
for  another  mile  or  two,  and  then  came  to  a  long  broken 
incline  which  swept  up  to  a  divide  some  four  miles  ahead 
of  us.  Lambert  had  been  riding  alongside  of  Abernethy, 
at  the  front,  but  his  horse  began  to  play  out,  and  needed 
to  be  nursed  along,  so  that  he  dropped  back  level  with 
me.  By  the  time  I  had  reached  the  foot  of  this  incline 
the  punchers,  riding  at  full  speed,  had  shot  their  bolts, 
and  one  by  one  I  passed  them,  as  well  as  most  of  the 
greyhounds.  But  Abernethy  was  far  ahead,  his  white 
horse  loping  along  without  showing  any  signs  of  distress. 
Up  the  long  slope  I  did  not  dare  press  my  animal,  and 
Abernethy  must  have  been  a  mile  ahead  of  me  when  he 
struck  the  divide,  while  where  the  others  were  I  had  no 
idea,  except  that  they  were  behind  me.  When  I  reached 


THE   BIG    D.    COW   PONY 

From  a  photograph  by  W.  Sloan  Simpson 


WOLF-COURSING  1 1 3 

the  divide  I  was  afraid  I  might  have  missed  Abernethy, 
but  to  my  delight  he  was  still  in  sight,  far  ahead.  As 
we  began  to  go  down  hill  I  let  the  horse  fairly  race;  for 
by  Abernethy's  motions  I  could  tell  that  he  was  close  to 
the  wolf  and  that  it  was  no  longer  running  in  a  straight 
line,  so  that  there  was  a  chance  of  my  overtaking  them. 
In  a  couple  of  miles  I  was  close  enough  to  see  what  was 
going  on.  But  one  greyhound  was  left  with  Abernethy. 
The  coyote  was  obviously  tired,  and  Abernethy,  with  the 
aid  of  his  perfectly  trained  horse,  was  helping  the  grey- 
hound catch  it.  Twice  he  headed  it,  and  this  enabled 
me  to  gain  rapidly.  They  had  reached  a  small  unwooded 
creek  by  the  time  I  was  within  fifty  yards ;  the  little  wolf 
tried  to  break  back  to  the  left;  Abernethy  headed  it  and 
rode  almost  over  it,  and  it  gave  a  wicked  snap  at  his 
foot,  cutting  the  boot.  Then  he  wheeled  and  came  tow- 
ard it;  again  it  galloped  back,  and  just  as  it  crossed  the 
creek  the  greyhound  made  a  rush,  pinned  it  by  the  hind 
leg  and  threw  it.  There  was  a  scuffle,  then  a  yell  from 
the  greyhound  as  the  wolf  bit  it.  At  the  bite  the  hound 
let  go  and  jumped  back  a  few  feet,  and  at  the  same  mo- 
ment Abernethy,  who  had  ridden  his  horse  right  on  them 
as  they  struggled,  leaped  off  and  sprang  on  top  of  the 
wolf.  He  held  the  reins  of  the  horse  with  one  hand  and 
thrust  the  oth£r,  with  a  rapidity  and  precision  even 
greater  than  the  rapidity  of  the  wolf's  snap,  into  the  wolf's 
mouth,  jamming  his  hand  down  crosswise  between  the 
jaws,  seizing  the  lower  jaw  and  bending  it  down  so  that 
the  wolf  could  not  bite  him.  He  had  a  stout  glove  on  his 
hand,  but  this  would  have  been  of  no  avail  whatever  had 


n4  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

he  not  seized  the  animal  just  as  he  did;  that  is,  behind  the 
canines,  while  his  hand  pressed  the  lips  against  the  teeth; 
with  his  knees  he  kept  the  wolf  from  using  its  forepaws 
to  break  the  hold,  until  it  gave  up  struggling.  When  he 
thus  leaped  on  and  captured  this  coyote  it  was  entirely 
free,  the  dog  having  let  go  of  it;  and  he  was  obliged  to 
keep  hold  of  the  reins  of  his  horse  with  one  hand.  I  was 
not  twenty  yards  distant  at  the  time,  and  as  I  leaped  off 
the  horse  he  was  sitting  placidly  on  the  live  wolf,  his 
hand  between  its  jaws,  the  greyhound  standing  beside 
him,  and  his  horse  standing  by  as  placid  as  he  was.  In 
a  couple  of  minutes  Fortescue  and  Lambert  came  up.  It 
was  as  remarkable  a  feat  of  the  kind  as  I  have  ever  seen. 

Through  some  oversight  we  had  no  straps  with  us, 
and  Abernethy  had  lost  the  wire  which  he  usually  carried 
in  order  to  tie  up  the  wolves'  muzzles — for  he  habitually 
captured  his  wolves  in  this  fashion.  However,  Abernethy 
regarded  the  lack  of  straps  as  nothing  more  than  a  slight 
bother.  Asking  one  of  us  to  hold  his  horse,  he  threw 
the  wolf  across  in  front  of  the  saddle,  still  keeping  his 
grip  on  the  lower  jaw,  then  mounted  and  rode  off  with 
us  on  the  back  track.  The  wolf  was  not  tied  in  any  way. 
It  was  unhurt,  and  the  only  hold  he  had  was  on  its  lower 
jaw.  I  was  surprised  that  it  did  not  strive  to  fight  with 
its  legs,  but  after  becoming  satisfied  that  it  could  not  bite, 
it  seemed  to  resign  itself  to  its  fate,  was  fairly  quiet,  and 
looked  about  with  its  ears  pricked  forward.  The  wolves 
which  I  subsequently  saw  him  capture,  and,  having  tied 
up  their  muzzles,  hold  before  him  on  the  saddle,  acted 
in  precisely  the  same  manner. 


WOLF-COURSING  115 

The  run  had  been  about  ten  miles  in  an  almost 
straight  line.  At  the  finish  no  other  riders  were  in  sight, 
but  soon  after  we  crossed  the  divide  on  our  return,  and 
began  to  come  down  the  long  slope  toward  the  creek,  we 
were  joined  by  Tom  Burnett  and  Bony  Moore;  while 
some  three  or  four  miles  ahead  on  a  rise  of  the  prairie 
we  could  see  the  wagon  in  which  Burke  Burnett  was  driv- 
ing General  Young.  Other  punchers  and  straggling 
greyhounds  joined  us,  and  as  the  wolf,  after  travelling 
some  five  miles,  began  to  recover  his  wind  and  show  a 
tendency  to  fight  for  his  freedom,  Abernethy  tied  up  his 
jaws  with  his  handkerchief  and  handed  him  over  to  Bony 
Moore,  who  packed  him  on  the  saddle  with  entire  indif- 
ference, the  wolf  himself  showing  a  curious  philosophy. 
Our  horses  had  recovered  their  wind  and  we  struck  into 
a  gallop  down  the  slope;  then  as  we  neared  the  wagon 
we  broke  into  a  run,  Bony  Moore  brandishing  aloft  with 
one  hand  the  live  wolf,  its  jaws  tied  up  with  a  handker- 
chief, but  otherwise  unbound.  We  stopped  for  a  few 
minutes  with  Burnett  and  the  general  to  tell  particulars 
of  the  hunt.  Then  we  loped  off  again  toward  camp, 
which  was  some  half  dozen  miles  off.  I  shall  always 
remember  this  run  and  the  really  remarkable  feat  Aber- 
nethy performed.  Colonel  Lyon  had  seen  him  catch  a 
big  wolf  in  the  same  way  that  he  caught  this  coyote.  It 
was  his  usual  method  of  catching  both  coyotes  and  wolves. 
Almost  equally  noteworthy  were  the  way  in  which  he 
handled  and  helped  his  greyhounds,  and  the  judgment, 
resolution,  and  fine  horsemanship  he  displayed.  His 
horse  showed  extraordinary  endurance. 


n6  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

The  third  day  we  started  out  as  usual,  the  chuck 
wagon  driving  straight  to  a  pool  far  out  on  the  prairie, 
where  we  were  to  meet  it  for  lunch.  Chief  Quanah's 
three  wives  had  joined  him,  together  with  a  small  boy 
and  a  baby,  and  they  drove  in  a  wagon  of  their  own. 
Meanwhile  the  riders  and  hounds  went  south  nearly  to 
Red  River.  In  the  morning  we  caught  four  coyotes  and 
had  a  three  miles  run  after  one  which  started  too  far 
ahead  of  the  dogs,  and  finally  got  clean  away.  All  the 
four  that  we  got  were  started  fairly  close  up,  and  the  run 
was  a  breakneck  scurry,  horses  and  hounds  going  as  hard 
as  they  could  put  feet  to  the  ground.  Twice  the  cowboys 
distanced  me;  and  twice  the  accidents  of  the  chase,  the 
sudden  twists  and  turns  of  the  coyote  in  his  efforts  to  take 
advantage  of  the  ground,  favored  me  and  enabled  me  to 
be  close  up  at  the  end,  when  Abernethy  jumped  off  his 
horse  and  ran  in  to  where  the  dogs  had  the  coyote. 
He  was  even  quicker  with  his  hands  than  the  wolf's 
snap,  and  in  a  moment  he  always  had  the  coyote  by  the 
lower  jaw. 

Between  the  runs  we  shogged  forward  across  the  great 
reaches  of  rolling  prairie  in  the  bright  sunlight.  The  air 
was  wonderfully  clear,  and  any  object  on  the  sky-line,  no 
matter  how  small,  stood  out  with  startling  distinctness. 
There  were  few  flowers  on  these  dry  plains ;  in  sharp  con- 
trast to  the  flower  prairies  of  southern  Texas,  which  we 
had  left  the  week  before,  where  many  acres  for  a  stretch 
would  be  covered  by  masses  of  red  or  white  or  blue  or  yel- 
low blossoms — the  most  striking  of  all,  perhaps,  being  the 
fields  of  the  handsome  buffalo  clover.  As  we  plodded 


ABERNETHY    AND    COYOTE 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1905,  by  Alexander  Lambert,  M.D. 


WOLF-COURSING  117 

over  the  prairie  the  sharp  eyes  of  the  punchers  were  scan- 
ning the  ground  far  and  near,  and  sooner  or  later  one  of 
them  would  spy  the  motionless  form  of  a  coyote,  or  all 
would  have  their  attention  attracted  as  it  ran  like  a  fleet- 
ing gray  or  brown  shadow  among  the  grays  and  browns  of 
the  desolate  landscape.  Immediately  dogs  and  horses 
would  stretch  at  full  speed  after  it,  and  everything  would 
be  forgotten  but  the  wild  exhilaration  of  the  run. 

It  was  nearly  noon  when  we  struck  the  chuck  wagon. 
Immediately  the  handy  round-up  cook  began  to  prepare 
a  delicious  dinner,  and  we  ate  as  men  have  a  right  to  eat, 
who  have  ridden  all  the  morning  and  are  going  to  ride 
fresh  horses  all  the  afternoon.  Soon  afterward  the  horse- 
wranglers  drove  up  the  saddle  band,  while  some  of  the 
cow-punchers  made  a  rope  corral  from  the  side  of  the 
wagon.  .Into  this  the  horses  were  driven,  one  or  two 
breaking  back  and  being  brought  into  the  bunch  again 
only  after  a  gallop  more  exciting  than  most  coyote  chases. 
Fresh  ponies  were  roped  out  and  the  saddle  band  again 
turned  loose.  The  dogs  that  had  been  used  during  the 
morning  then  started  campward  with  the  chuck  wagon. 
One  of  the  punchers  was  riding  a  young  and  partially 
broken  horse;  he  had  no  bridle,  simply  a  rope  around  the 
horse's  neck.  This  man  started  to  accompany  the  wagon 
to  the  camp. 

The  rest  of  us  went  off  at  the  usual  cow-pony  trot  or 
running  walk.  It  was  an  hour  or  two  before  we  saw  any- 
thing; then  a  coyote  appeared  a  long  way  ahead  and  the 
dogs  raced  after  him.  The  first  mile  was  up  a  gentle 
slope ;  then  we  turned,  and  after  riding  a  couple  of  miles 


n8  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

on  the  level  the  dogs  had  shot  their  bolt  and  the  coyote 
drew  away.  When  he  got  too  far  in  front  the  dogs  and 
foremost  riders  stopped  and  waited  for  the  rest  of  us  to 
overtake  them,  and  shortly  afterward  Burke  Burnett  and 
the  general  appeared  in  their  buggy.  One  of  the  grey- 
hounds was  completely  done  out  and  we  took  some  time 
attending  to  it.  Suddenly  one  of  the  men,  either  Tom 
Burnett  or  Bony  Moore,  called  out  that  he  saw  the  coyote 
coming  back  pursued  by  a  horseman.  Sure  enough,  the 
unfortunate  little  wolf  had  run  in  sight  of  the  wagons, 
and  the  puncher  on  the  young  unbridled  horse  immedi- 
ately took  after  him,  and,  in  spite  of  a  fall,  succeeded  in 
heading  him  back  and  bringing  him  along  in  our  direc- 
tion, although  some  three-quarters  of  a  mile  away.  Im- 
mediately everyone  jumped  into  his  saddle  and  away  we 
all  streamed  down  a  long  slope  diagonally  to  the  course 
the  coyote  was  taking.  He  had  a  long  start,  but  the  dogs 
were  rested,  while  he  had  been  running  steadily,  and  this 
fact  proved  fatal  to  him.  Down  the  slope  to  the  creek 
bottom  at  its  end  we  rode  at  a  run.  Then  there  came  a 
long  slope  upward,  and  the  heavier  among  us  fell  gradu- 
ally to  the  rear.  When  we  topped  the  divide,  however, 
we  could  see  ahead  of  us  the  foremost  men  streaming 
after  the  hounds,  and  the  latter  running  in  a  way  which 
showed  that  they  were  well  up  on  their  game.  Even  a 
tired  horse  can  go  pretty  well  down  hill,  and  by  dint  of 
hard  running  we  who  were  behind  got  up  in  time  to  see 
the  worry  when  the  greyhounds  caught  the  coyote,  by 
some  low  ponds  in  a  treeless  creek-bed.  We  had  gone 
about  seven  miles,  the  unlucky  coyote  at  least  ten.  Our 


WOLF-COURSING 


119 


journey  to   camp   was   enlivened  by  catching   another 
coyote  after  a  short  run. 

Next  day  was  the  last  of  our  hunt.  We  started  off  in 
the  morning  as  usual,  but  the  buggy  men  on  this  occasion 
took  with  them  some  trail  hounds,  which  were  managed 
by  a  sergeant  of  the  regular  army,  a  game  sportsman. 
They  caught  two  coons  in  the  timber  of  a  creek  two  or 
three  miles  to  the  south  of  the  camp.  Meanwhile  the 
rest  of  us,  riding  over  the  prairie,  saw  the  greyhounds 
catch  two  coyotes,  one  after  a  rather  long  run  and  one 
after  a  short  one.  Then  we  turned  our  faces  toward 
camp.  I  saw  Abernethy,  with  three  or  four  of  his  own 
hounds,  riding  off  to  one  side,  but  unfortunately  I  did 
not  pay  any  heed  to  him,  as  I  supposed  the  hunting  was 
at  an  end.  But  when  we  reached  camp  Abernethy  was 
not  there,  nor  did  he  turn  up  until  we  were  finishing 
lunch.  Then  he  suddenly  appeared,  his  tired  greyhounds 
trotting  behind  him,  while  he  carried  before  him  on  the 
saddle  a  live  coyote,  with  its  muzzle  tied  up,  and  a  dead 
coyote  strapped  behind  his  saddle.  Soon  after  leaving 
us  he  had  found  a  coyote,  and  after  a  good  run  the  dogs 
had  stopped  it  and  he  had  jumped  off  arid  captured  it  in 
his  usual  fashion.  Then  while  riding  along,  holding  the 
coyote  before  him  on  the  saddle,  he  put  up  another  one. 
His  dogs  were  tired,  and  he  himself  was  of  course  greatly 
hampered  in  such  a  full-speed  run  by  having  the  live 
wolf  on  the  saddle  in  front  of  him.  One  by  one  the  dogs 
gave  out,  but  his  encouragement  and  assistance  kept  two 
of  them  to  their  work,  and  after  a  run  of  some  seven  miles 
the  coyote  was  overtaken.  It  was  completely  done  out 


120  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

and  would  probably  have  died  by  itself,  even  if  the  hounds 
had  not  taken  part  in  the  killing.  Hampered  as  he  was, 
Abernethy  could  not  take  it  alive  in  his  usual  fashion. 
So  when  it  was  dead  he  packed  it  behind  his  horse  and 
rode  back  in  triumph.  The  live  wolf,  as  in  every  other 
case  where  one  was  brought  into  camp,  made  curiously 
little  effort  to  fight  with  its  paws,  seeming  to  acquiesce  in 
its  captivity,  and  looking  around,  with  its  ears  thrust  for- 
ward, as  if  more  influenced  by  curiosity  than  by  any  other 
feeling. 

After  lunch  we  rode  toward  town,  stopping  at  night- 
fall to  take  supper  by  the  bank  of  a  creek.  We  entered 
the  town  after  dark,  some  twenty  of  us  on  horseback. 
Wagner  was  riding  with  us,  and  he  had  set  his  heart 
upon  coming  into  and  through  the  town  in  true  cowboy 
style;  and  it  was  he  who  set  the  pace.  We  broke  into  a 
lope  a  mile  outside  the  limits,  and  by  the  time  we  struck 
the  main  street  the  horses  were  on  a  run  and  we  tore  down 
like  a  whirlwind  until  we  reached  the  train.  Thus  ended 
as  pleasant  a  hunting  trip  as  any  one  could  imagine.  The 
party  got  seventeen  coyotes  all  told,  for  there  were  some 
runs  which  I  did  not  see  at  all,  as  now  and  then  both 
men  and  dogs  would  get  split  into  groups. 

On  this  hunt  we  did  not  see  any  of  the  big  wolves,  the 
so-called  buffalo  or  timber  wolves,  which  I  hunted  in  the 
old  days  on  the  Northern  cattle  plains.  Big  wolves  are 
found  in  both  Texas  and  Oklahoma,  but  they  are  rare 
compared  to  the  coyotes;  and  they  are  great  wanderers. 
Alone  or  in  parties  of  three  or  four  or  half  a  dozen  they 
travel  to  and  fro  across  the  country,  often  leaving  a  dis- 


WOLF-COURSING  121 

trict  at  once  if  they  are  molested.  Coyotes  are  more  or 
less  plentiful  everywhere  throughout  the  West  in  thinly 
settled  districts,  and  they  often  hang  about  in  the 
immediate  neighborhood  of  towns.  They  do  enough 
damage  to  make  farmers  and  ranchers  kill  them  when- 
ever the  chance  offers.  But  this  damage  is  not  appreci- 
able when  compared  with  the  ravages  of  their  grim  big 
brother,  the  gray  wolf,  which,  wherever  it  exists  in  num- 
bers, is  a  veritable  scourge  to  the  stockmen. 

Colonel  Lyon's  hounds  were,  as  I  have  said,  used 
chiefly  after  jack-rabbits.  He  had  frequently  killed  coy- 
otes with  them,  however,  and  on  two  or  three  occasions 
one  of  the  big  gray  wolves.  At  the  time  when  he  did 
most  of  his  wolf-hunting  he  had  with  the  greyhounds  a 
huge  fighting  dog,  a  Great  Dane,  weighing  one  hundred 
and  forty-five  pounds.  In  spite  of  its  weight  this  dog 
could  keep  up  well  in  a  short  chase,  and  its  ferocious  tem- 
per and  enormous  weight  and  strength  made  it  invaluable 
at  the  bay.  Whether  the  quarry  were  a  gray  wolf  or 
coyote  mattered  not  in  the  least  to  it,  and  it  made  its 
assaults  with  such  headlong  fury  that  it  generally  escaped 
damage.  On  the  two  or  three  occasions  when  the  animal 
bayed  was  a  big  wolf  the  greyhounds  did  not  dare  tackle 
it,  jumping  about  in  an  irregular  circle  and  threatening 
the  wolf  until  the  fighting  dog  came  up.  The  latter  at 
once  rushed  in,  seizing  its  antagonist  by  the  throat  or 
neck  and  throwing  it.  Doubtless  it  would  have  killed 
the  wolf  unassisted,  but  the  greyhounds  always  joined  in 
the  killing;  and  once  thrown,  the  wolf  could  never  get 
on  his  legs.  In  these  encounters  the  dog  was  never  seri- 


122  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ously  hurt.  Rather  curiously,  the  only  bad  wound  it  ever 
received  was  from  a  coyote;  the  little  wolf,  not  one-third 
of  its  weight,  managing  to  inflict  a  terrific  gash  down  its 
huge  antagonist's  chest,  nearly  tearing  it  open.  But  of 
course  a  coyote  against  such  a  foe  could  not  last  much 
longer  than  a  rat  pitted  against  a  terrier. 

Big  wolves  and  coyotes  are  found  side  by  side 
throughout  the  Western  United  States,  both  varying  so 
in  size  that  if  a  sufficient  number  of  specimens,  from  dif- 
ferent localities,  are  examined  it  will  be  found  that  there 
is  a  complete  intergradation  in  both  stature  and  weight. 
To  the  northward  the  coyotes  disappear,  and  the  big 
wolves  grow  larger  and  larger  until  in  the  arctic  regions 
they  become  veritable  giants.  At  Point  Barrow  Mr.  E. 
A.  Mcllhenny  had  six  of  the  eight  "  huskies  "  of  his  dog 
team  killed  and  eaten  by  a  huge  white  dog  wolf.  At  last 
he  shot  it,  and  found  that  it  weighed  one  hundred  and 
sixty-one  pounds. 

Good  trail  hounds  can  run  down  a  wolf.  A  year  ago 
Jake  Borah's  pack  in  northwestern  Colorado  ran  a  big 
wolf  weighing  one  hundred  and  fifteen  pounds  to  bay  in 
but  little  over  an  hour.  He  then  stood  with  his  back  to  a 
rock,  and  though  the  dogs  formed  a  semicircle  around 
him,  they  dared  not  tackle  him.  Jake  got  up  and  shot  him. 
Unless  well  trained  and  with  the  natural  fighting  edge 
neither  trail  hounds  (fox-hounds)  nor  greyhounds  can 
or  will  kill  a  big  wolf,  and  under  ordinary  circumstances, 
no  matter  how  numerous,  they  make  but  a  poor  showing 
against  one.  But  big  ninety-pound  or  one  hundred- 
pound  greyhounds,  specially  bred  and  trained  for  the 


WOLF-COURSING 


123 


purpose,  stand  on  an  entirely  different  footing.  Three 
or  four  of  these  dogs,  rushing  in  together  and  seizing  the 
wolf  by  the  throat,  will  kill  him,  or  worry  him  until  he 
is  helpless.  On  several  occasions  the  Colorado  Springs 
greyhounds  have  performed  this  feat.  Johnny  Goff 
owned  a  large,  fierce  dog,  a  cross  between  what  he  called 
a  Siberian  bloodhound  (I  suppose  some  animal  like  a 
Great  Dane)  and  an  ordinary  hound,  which,  on  one  occa- 
sion when  he  had  shot  at  and  broken  the  hind  leg  of  a  big 
wolf,  ran  it  down  and  killed  it.  On  the  other  hand,  wolves 
will  often  attack  dogs.  In  March  of  the  present  year — 
nineteen  hundred  and  five — Goff's  dogs  were  scattered 
over  a  hillside  hunting  a  bobcat,  when  he  heard  one  of 
them  yell,  and  looking  up  saw  that  two  wolves  were  chas- 
ing it.  The  other  dogs  were  so  busy  puzzling  out  the 
cat's  trail  that  they  never  noticed  what  was  happening. 
Goff  called  aloud,  whereupon  the  wolves  stopped.  He 
shot  one  and  the  other  escaped.  He  thinks  that  they 
would  have  overtaken  and  killed  the  hound  in  a  minute 
or  two  if  he  had  not  interfered. 

The  big  wolves  shrink  back  before  the  growth  of  the 
thickly  settled  districts,  and  in  the  Eastern  States  they 
often  tend  to  disappear  even  from  districts  that  are  unin- 
habited save  by  a  few  wilderness  hunters.  They  have  thus 
disappeared  almost  entirely  from  Maine,  the  Adiron- 
dacks,  and  the  Alleghanies,  although  here  and  there  they 
are  said  to  be  returning  to  their  old  haunts.  Their  dis- 
appearance is  rather  mysterious  in  some  instances,  for 
they  are  certainly  not  all  killed  off.  The  black  bear  is 
much  easier  killed,  yet  the  black  bear  holds  its  own  in 


i24  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

many  parts  of  the  land  from  which  the  wolf  has  vanished. 
No  animal  is  quite  so  difficult  to  kill  as  is  the  wolf, 
whether  by  poison  or  rifle  or  hound.  Yet,  after  a  com- 
paratively few  have  been  slain,  the  entire  species  will 
perhaps  vanish  from  certain  localities.  In  some  localities 
even  the  cougar,  the  easiest  of  all  game  to  kill  with 
hounds,  holds  its  own  better.  This,  however,  is  not  gen- 
erally true. 

But  with  all  wild  animals,  it  is  a  noticeable  fact  that 
a  course  of  contact  with  man  continuing  over  many  gen- 
erations  of  animal  life  causes  a  species  so  to  adapt  itself 
to  its  new  surroundings  that  it  can  hold  its  own  far  better 
than  formerly.  When  white  men  take  up  a  new  country, 
the  game,  and  especially  the  big  game,  being  entirely  un- 
used to  contend  with  the  new  foe,  succumb  easily,  and 
are  almost  completely  killed  out.  If  any  individuals  sur- 
vive at  all,  however,  the  succeeding  generations  are  far 
more  difficult  to  exterminate  than  were  their  ancestors, 
and  they  cling  much  more  tenaciously  to  their  old  homes. 
The  game  to  be  found  in  old  and  long-settled  countries  is 
of  course  much  more  wary  and  able  to  take  care  of  itself 
than  the  game  of  an  untrodden  wilderness;  it  is  the  wil- 
derness life,  far  more  than  the  actual  killing  of  the  wil- 
derness game,  which  tests  the  ability  of  the  wilderness 
hunter. 

After  a  time,  game  may  even,  for  the  time  being,  in- 
crease in  certain  districts  where  settlements  are  thin.  This 
was  true  of  the  wolves  throughout  the  northern  cattle 
country,  in  Montana,  Wyoming,  Colorado,  and  the  west- 
ern ends  of  the  Dakotas.  In  the  old  days  wolves  were 


ABERNETHY    RETURNS    FROM   '1  HE   HUNT 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1905,  by  Alexander  Lambert,  M.D. 


WOLF-COURSING 


125 


very  plentiful  throughout  this  region,  closely  following 
the  huge  herds  of  buffaloes.  The  white  men  who  fol- 
lowed these  herds  as  professional  buffalo-hunters  were 
often  accompanied  by  other  men,  known  as  wolfers,  who 
poisoned  these  wolves  for  the  sake  of  their  fur.  With  the 
disappearance  of  the  buffalo  the  wolves  diminished  in 
numbers  so  that  they  also  seemed  to  disappear.  Then  in 
the  late  eighties  or  early  nineties  the  wolves  began  again 
to  increase  in  numbers  until  they  became  once  more  as 
numerous  as  ever  and  infinitely  more  wary  and  difficult 
to  kill ;  though  as  they  were  nocturnal  in  their  habits  they 
were  not  often  seen.  Along  the  Little  Missouri  and  in 
many  parts  of  Montana  and  Wyoming  this  increase  was 
very  noticeable  during  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  They  were  at  that  time  the  only  big  animals 
of  the  region  which  had  increased  in  numbers.  Such  an 
increase  following  a  previous  decrease  in  the  same  region 
was  both  curious  and  interesting.  I  never  knew  the 
wolves  to  be  so  numerous  or  so  daring  in  their  assaults 
upon  stock  in  the  Little  Missouri  country  as  in  the  years 
1894  to  1896  inclusive.  I  am  unable  wholly  to  account 
for  these  changes.  The  first  great  diminution  in  the  num- 
bers of  the  wolves  is  only  partially  to  be  explained  by 
the  poisoning;  yet  they  seemed  to  disappear  almost  every- 
where and  for  a  number  of  years  continued  scarce.  Then' 
they  again  became  plentiful,  reappearing  in  districts 
from  whence  they  had  entirely  vanished,  and  appearing 
in  new  districts  where  they  had  been  hitherto  unknown. 
Then  they  once  more  began  to  diminish  in  number.  In 
northwestern  Colorado,  in  the  White  River  country,  cou- 


126  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

gars  fairly  swarmed  in  the  early  nineties,  while  up  to  that 
time  the  big  gray  wolves  were  almost  or  entirely  un- 
known. Then  they  began  to  come  in,  and  increased 
steadily  in  numbers,  while  the  cougars  diminished,  so 
that  by  the  winter  of  1902-3  they  much  outnumbered 
the  big  cats,  and  committed  great  ravages  among  the 
stock.  The  settlers  were  at  their  wits'  ends  how  to  deal 
with  the  pests.  At  last  a  trapper  came  in,  a  shiftless  fel- 
low, but  extraordinarily  proficient  in  his  work.  He  had 
some  kind  of  scent,  the  secret  of  which  he  would  not  re- 
veal, which  seemed  to  drive  the  wolves  nearly  crazy  with 
desire.  In  one  winter  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Key- 
stone Ranch  he  trapped  forty-two  big  gray  wolves; 
they  still  outnumber  the  cougars,  which  in  that  neigh- 
borhood have  been  nearly  killed  out,  but  they  are  no 
longer  abundant. 

At  present  wolves  are  decreasing  in  numbers  all  over 
Colorado,  as  they  are  in  Montana,  Wyoming,  and  the 
Dakotas.  In  some  localities  traps  have  been  found 
most  effective;  in  others,  poison;  and  in  yet  others, 
hounds.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  where  they  have 
been  pursued  in  one  manner  for  a  long  time  any  new 
method  will  at  first  prove  more  efficacious.  After  a  very 
few  wolves  have  been  poisoned  or  trapped,  the  survivors 
become  so  wary  that  only  a  master  in  the  art  can  do  any- 
thing with  them,  while  there  are  always  a  few  wolves 
which  cannot  be  persuaded  to  touch  a  bait  save  under 
wholly  exceptional  circumstances.  From  association 
with  the  old  she  wolves  the  cubs  learn  as  soon  as  they 
are  able  to  walk  to  avoid  man's  traces  in  every  way,  and 


WOLF-COURSING  127 

to  look  out  for  traps  and  poison.  They  are  so  shy  and 
show  such  extraordinary  cunning  in  hiding  and  slinking 
out  of  the  way  of  the  hunter  that  they  are  rarely  killed 
with  the  rifle.  Personally  I  never  shot  but  one.  A  bold 
and  good  rider  on  a  first-rate  horse  can,  however,  run 
down  even  a  big  gray  wolf  in  fair  chase,  and  either  rope 
or  shoot  it.  I  have  known  a  number  of  cow-punchers  thus 
to  rope  wolves  when  they  happened  to  run  across  them 
after  they  had  gorged  themselves  on  their  quarry.  A 
former  Colorado  ranchman,  Mr.  Henry  N.  Pancoast, 
who  had  done  a  good  deal  of  wolf-hunting,  and  had 
killed  one  which,  judging  by  its  skin,  was  a  veritable 
monster,  wrote  me  as  follows  about  his  experiences: 

"  I  captured  nearly  all  my  wolves  by  running  them 
down  and  then  either  roped  or  shot  them.  I  had  one 
mount  that  had  great  endurance,  and  when  riding  him 
never  failed  to  give  chase  to  a  wolf  if  I  had  the  time  to 
spare;  and  never  failed  to  get  my  quarry  but  two  or  three 
times.  I  roped  four  full-grown  and  two  cubs  and  shot 
five  full-grown  and  three  cubs — the  large  wolf  in  ques- 
tion being  killed  that  way.  And  he  was  by  far  the  hardest 
proposition  I  ever  tried,  and  I  candidly  think  I  run  him 
twenty  miles  before  overhauling  and  shooting  him  (he 
showed  too  much  fight  to  use  a  rope) .  As  it  was  almost 
dark,  concluded  to  put  him  on  horse  and  skin  at  ranch, 
but  had  my  hands  full  to  get  him  on  the  saddle,  was  so 
very  heavy.  My  plan  in  running  wolves  down  was  to 
get  about  three  hundred  yards  from  them,  and  then  to 
keep  that  distance  until  the  wolf  showed  signs  of  fatigue, 
when  a  little  spurt  would  generally  succeed  in  landing 


128  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

him.  In  the  case  of  the  large  one,  however,  I  reckoned 
without  my  host,  as  the  wolf  had  as  much  go  left  as  the 
horse,  so  I  tried  slowing  down  to  a  walk  and  let  the  wolf 
go ;  he  .  .  .  came  down  to  a  little  trot  and  soon  placed 
a  half  mile  between  us,  and  finally  went  out  of  sight  over 
a  high  hill.  I  took  my  time  and  on  reaching  top  of  hill 
saw  wolf  about  four  hundred  yards  off,  and  as  I  now 
had  a  down  grade  managed  to  get  my  tired  horse  on  a 
lope  and  was  soon  up  to  the  wolf,  which  seemed  all  stiff- 
ened up,  and  one  shot  from  my  Winchester  finished  him. 
We  always  had  poison  out,  as  wolves  and  coyotes  killed 
a  great  many  calves.  Never  poisoned  but  two  wolves, 
and  those  were  caught  with  fresh  antelope  liver  and 
entrails  (coyotes  were  easily  poisoned)." 

In  the  early  nineties  the  ravages  of  the  wolves  along 
the  Little  Missouri  became  so  serious  as  thoroughly  to 
arouse  the  stockmen.  Not  only  colts  and  calves,  and 
young  trail  stock,  but  in  midwinter  full-grown  horses 
and  steers  were  continually  slain.  The  county  authori- 
ties put  a  bounty  of  three  dollars  each  on  wolf  scalps,  to 
which  the  ranchmen  of  the  neighborhood  added  a  further 
bounty  of  five  dollars.  This  made  eight  dollars  for  every 
wolf,  and  as  the  skin  was  also  worth  something,  the  busi- 
ness of  killing  wolves  became  profitable.  Quite  a  number 
of  men  tried  poisoning  or  trapping,  but  the  most  success- 
ful wolf  hunter  on  the  Little  Missouri  at  that  time  was 
a  man  who  did  not  rely  on  poison  at  all,  but  on  dogs. 
He  was  named  Massingale,  and  he  always  had  a  pack 
of  at  least  twenty  hounds.  The  number  varied,  for  a  wolf 
at  bay  is  a  terrible  fighter,  with  jaws  like  those  of  a  steel 


BONY   MOORE   AND    THE   COYOTE 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1905,  by  Alexander  Lambert.  M  D. 


WOLF-COURSING  129 

trap,  and  teeth  that  cut  like  knives,  so  that  the  dogs  were 
continually  disabled  and  sometimes  killed,  and  the  hunter 
had  always  to  be  on  the  watch  to  add  animals  to  his  pack. 
It  was  not  a  good-looking  pack,  but  it  was  thoroughly  fit 
for  its  own  work.  Most  of  the  dogs  were  greyhounds, 
whether  rough  or  smooth  haired,  but  many  of  them  were 
big  mongrels,  part  greyhound  and  part  some  other  breed, 
such  as  bulldog,  mastiff,  Newfoundland,  bloodhound,  or 
collie.  The  only  two  requisites  were  that  the  dogs  should 
run  fast  and  fight  gamely;  and  in  consequence  they 
formed  as  wicked,  hard-biting  a  crew  as  ever  ran  down 
and  throttled  a  wolf.  They  were  usually  taken  out  ten 
at  a  time,  and  by  their  aid  Massingale  killed  over  two 
hundred  wolves,  including  cubs.  Of  course  there  was 
no  pretence  of  giving  the  game  fair  play.  The  wolves 
were  killed  as  vermin,  not  for  sport.  The  greatest  havoc 
was  in  the  spring-time,  when  the  she-wolves  were  fol- 
lowed to  their  dens.  Some  of  the  hounds  were  very  fast, 
and  they  could  usually  overtake  a  young  or  weak  wolf; 
but  an  old  dog-wolf,  with  a  good  start,  unless  run  into  at 
once,  would  ordinarily  get  away  if  he  were  in  running 
trim.  Frequently,  however,  he  was  caught  when  not  in 
running  trim,  for  the  hunter  was  apt  to  find  him  when  he 
had  killed  a  calf  or  taken  part  in  dragging  down  a  horse 
or  steer,  and  was  gorged  with  meat.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances he  could  not  run  long  before  the  pack.  If 
possible,  as  with  all  such  packs,  the  hunter  himself  got 
up  in  time  to  end  the  worry  by  a  stab  of  his  hunting-knife ; 
but  unless  he  was  quick  he  had  nothing  to  do,  for  the  pack 
was  thoroughly  competent  to  do  its  own  killing.  Grim 


1 3o  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

fighter  though  a  great  dog-wolf  is,  he  stands  no  show  be- 
fore the  onslaught  of  ten  such  hounds,  agile  and  power- 
ful, who  rush  on  their  antagonist  in  a  body.  Massingale's 
dogs  possessed  great  power  in  their  jaws,  and  unless  he 
was  up  within  two  or  three  minutes  after  the  wolf  was 
overtaken,  they  tore  him  to  death,  though  one  or  more 
of  their  number  might  be  killed  or  crippled  in  the  fight. 
The  wolf  might  be  throttled  without  having  the  hide 
on  its  neck  torn ;  but  when  it  was  stretched  out  the  dogs 
ripped  open  its  belly.  Dogs  do  not  get  their  teeth 
through  the  skin  of  an  old  cougar;  but  they  will  tear  up 
either  a  bobcat  or  coyote. 

In  1894  and  1896  I  saw  a  number  of  wolves  on  the 
Little  Missouri,  although  I  was  not  looking  for  them.  I 
frequently  came  upon  the  remains  of  sheep  and  young 
stock  which  they  had  killed ;  and  once,  upon  the  top  of 
a  small  plateau,  I  found  the  body  of  a  large  steer,  while 
the  torn  and  trodden  ground  showed  that  he  had  fought 
hard  for  his  life  before  succumbing.  There  had  been 
two  wolves  engaged  in  the  work,  and  the  cunning  beasts 
had  evidently  acted  in  concert.  Apparently,  while  one 
attracted  the  steer's  attention  in  front,  the  other,  accord- 
ing to  the  invariable  wolf  habit,  attacked  him  from  be- 
hind, hamstringing  him  and  tearing  out  his  flanks.  His 
body  was  still  warm  when  I  came  up,  but  the  marauders 
had  slunk  off,  either  seeing  or  smelling  me.  There  was 
no  mistaking  the  criminals,  however,  for,  unlike  bears, 
which  usually  attack  an  animal  at  the  withers,  or  cougars, 
which  attack  the  throat  or  head,  wolves  almost  invariably 
attack  their  victim  at  the  hind  quarters  and  begin  first 


WOLF-COURSING  131 

on  the  hams  or  flanks,  if  the  animal  is  of  any  size.  Owing 
to  their  often  acting  in  couples  or  in  packs,  the  big  wolves 
do  more  damage  to  horned  stock  than  cougars,  but  they 
are  not  as  dangerous  to  colts,  and  they  are  not  nearly  as 
expert  as  the  big  cats  in  catching  deer  and  mountain 
sheep.  When  food  is  plentiful,  good  observers  say  that 
they  will  not  try  to  molest  foxes;  but,  if  hungry,  they 
certainly  snap  them  up  as  quickly  as  they  would  fawns. 
Ordinarily  they  show  complete  tolerance  of  the  coyotes; 
yet  one  bitter  winter  I  knew  of  a  coyote  being  killed  and 
eaten  by  a  wolf. 

Not  only  do  the  habits  of  wild  beasts  change  under 
changing  conditions  as  time  goes  on,  but  there  seems  to 
be  some  change  even  in  their  appearance.  Thus  the  early 
observers  of  the  game  of  the  Little  Missouri,  those  who 
wrote  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  spoke 
much  of  the  white  wolves  which  were  then  so  common  in 
the  region.  These  white  wolves  represented  in  all  prob- 
ability only  a  color  variety  of  the  ordinary  gray  wolf ;  and 
it  is  difficult  to  say  exactly  why  they  disappeared.  Yet 
when  about  the  year  1890  wolves  again  grew  common 
these  white  wolves  were  very,  very  rare;  indeed  I  never 
personally  heard  of  but  one  being  seen.  This  was  on  the 
Upper  Cannonball  in  1892.  A  nearly  black  wolf  was 
killed  not  far  from  this  spot  in  the  year  1893.  At  the 
present  day  black  wolves  are  more  common  than  white 
wolves,  which  are  rare  indeed.  But  all  these  big  wolves 
are  now  decreasing  in  numbers,  and  in  most  places  are 
decreasing  rapidly. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  on  some  points  my  observations 


1 32  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

about  wolves  are  in  seeming  conflict  with  those  of  other 
observers  as  competent  as  I  am;  but  I  think  the  conflict 
is  more  seeming  than  real,  and  I  have  concluded  to  let 
my  words  stand.  The  great  book  of  nature  contains  many 
pages  which  are  hard  to  read,  and  at  times  conscientious 
students  may  well  draw  different  interpretations  of  the 
obscure  and  least-known  texts.  It  may  not  be  that  either 
observer  is  at  fault,  but  what  is  true  of  an  animal  in  one 
locality  may  not  be  true  of  the  same  animal  in  another, 
and  even  in  the  same  locality  two  individuals  of  the  same 
species  may  differ  widely  in  their  traits  and  habits. 


CHAPTER   IV 

HUNTING   IN   THE   CATTLE   COUNTRY;   THE   PRONGBUCK 

THE  prongbuck  is  the  most  characteristic  and  distinc- 
tive of  American  game  animals.  Zoologically  speaking, 
its  position  is  unique.  It  is  the  only  hollow-horned 
ruminant  which  sheds  its  horns,  or  rather  the  horn 
sheaths.  We  speak  of  it  as  an  antelope,  and  it  does  of 
course  represent  on  out  prairies  the  antelopes  of  the  Old 
World;  but  it  stands  apart  from  all  other  horned  animals. 
Its  place  in  the  natural  world  is  almost  as  lonely  as  that 
of  the  giraffe.  In  all  its  ways  and  habits  it  differs  as  much 
from  deer  and  elk  as  from  goat  and  sheep.  Now  that  the 
buffalo  has  gone,  it  is  the  only  game  really  at  home  on  the 
wide  plains.  It  is  a  striking-looking  little  creature,  with 
its  prominent  eyes,  single-pronged  horns,  and  the  sharply 
contrasted  white,  brown  and  reddish  of  its  coat.  The 
brittle  hair  is  stiff,  coarse  and  springy;  on  the  rump  it  is 
brilliantly  white,  and  is  erected  when  the  animal  is 
alarmed  or  excited,  so  as  to  be  very  conspicuous.  In 
marked  contrast  to  deer,  antelope  never  seek  to  elude  ob- 
servation ;  all  they  care  for  is  to  be  able  themselves  to  see. 
As  they  have  good  noses  and  wonderful  eyes,  and  as  they 
live  by  preference  where  there  is  little  or  no  cover,  shots 
at  them  are  usually  obtained  at  far  longer  range  than  is 
the  case  with  other  game;  and  yet,  as  they  are  easily  seen, 


i34  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

and  often  stand  looking  at  the  hunter  just  barely  within 
very  long  rifle-range,  they  are  always  tempting  their  pur- 
suer to  the  expenditure  of  cartridges.  More  shots  are 
wasted  at  antelope  than  at  any  other  game.  They  would 
be  even  harder  to  secure  were  it  not  that  they  are  subject 
to  fits  of  panic  folly,  or  excessive  curiosity,  which  occa- 
sionally put  them  fairly  at  the  mercy  of  the  rifle-bearing 
hunter. 

In  the  old  days  the  prongbuck  was  found  as  soon  as 
the  westward-moving  traveller  left  the  green  bottom- 
lands of  the  Mississippi,  and  from  thence  across  to  the 
dry,  open  valleys  of  California,  and  northward  to  Canada 
and  southward  into  Mexico.  It  has  everywhere  been 
gradually  thinned  out,  and  has  vanished  altogether  from 
what  were  formerly  the  extreme  easterly  and  westerly 
limits  of  its  range.  The  rates  of  extermination  of  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  big  game  have  been  very  unequal  in 
different  localities.  Each  kind  of  big  game  has  had  its 
own  peculiar  habitat  in  which  it  throve  best,  and  each 
has  also  been  found  more  or  less  plentifully  in  other  re- 
gions where  the  circumstances  were  less  favorable;  and  in 
these  comparatively  unfavorable  regions  it  early  tends 
to  disappear  before  the  advance  of  man.  In  consequence, 
where  the  ranges  of  the  different  game  animals  overlap 
and  are  intertwined,  one  will  disappear  first  in  one  local- 
ity, and  another  will  disappear  first  where  the  conditions 
are  different.  Thus  the  whitetail  deer  had  thrust  for- 
ward along  the  very  narrow  river  bottoms  into  the  do- 
main of  the  mule-deer  and  the  prongbuck  among  the  foot- 
hills of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  in  these  places  it  was 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY    135 

exterminated  from  the  narrow  strips  which  it  inhabited 
long  before  the  mule-deer  vanished  from  the  high  hills, 
or  the  prongbuck  from  the  great  open  plains.  But  along 
great  portions  of  the  Missouri  there  are  plenty  of  white- 
tails  yet  left  in  the  river  bottoms,  while  the  mule-deer 
that  once  dwelt  in  the  broken  hills  behind  them,  and  the 
prongbuck  which  lived  on  the  prairie  just  back  of  these 
bluffs,  have  both  disappeared.  In  the  same  way  the  mule- 
deer  and  the  prongbuck  are  often  found  almost  inter- 
mingled through  large  regions  in  which  plains,  hills,  and 
mountains  alternate.  If  such  a  region  is  mainly  moun- 
tainous, but  contains  a  few  valleys  and  table-lands,  the 
prongbuck  is  sure  to  vanish  from  the  latter  before  the 
mule-deer  vanishes  from  the  broken  country.  But  if  the 
region  is  one  primarily  of  plains,  with  here  and  there 
rows  of  rocky  hills  in  which  the  mule-deer  is  found,  the 
latter  is  killed  off  long  before  the  prongbuck  can  be 
hunted  out  of  the  great  open  stretches.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  pronghorn  and  the  wapiti.  The  size  and  value  of 
the  wapiti  make  it  an  object  of  eager  persecution  on  the 
part  of  hunters.  But  as  it  can  live  in  the  forest-clad  fast- 
nesses of  the  Rockies,  into  which  settlement  does  not  go, 
it  outlasts  over  great  regions  the  pronghorn,  whose  abode 
is  easily  penetrated  by  sheep  and  cattle  men.  Under  any- 
thing like  even  conditions,  however,  the  prongbuck,  of 
course,  outlasts  the  wapiti.  This  was  the  case  on  the  Lit- 
tle Missouri.  On  that  stream  the  bighorn  also  outlasted 
the  wapiti.  In  1881  wapiti  were  still  much  more  plenti- 
ful than  bighorns.  Within  the  next  decade  they  had 
almost  totally  disappeared,  while  the  bighorn  was  still 


136  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

to  be  found;  I  shot  one  and  saw  others  in  1893,  at  which 
time  I  had  not  authentic  information  of  a  single  wapiti 
remaining  anywhere  on  the  river  in  my  neighborhood, 
although  it  is  possible  that  one  or  two  still  lurked  in  some 
out-of-the-way  recess.  In  Colorado  at  one  time  the  big- 
horn was  nearly  exterminated,  while  the  wapiti  still 
withstood  the  havoc  made  among  its  huge  herds ;  then  fol- 
lowed a  period  in  which  the  rapidity  of  destruction  of 
the  wapiti  increased  far  beyond  that  of  the  bighorn. 

I  mention  these  facts  partly  because  they  are  of  inter- 
est in  themselves,  but  chiefly  because  they  tend  to  explain 
the  widely  different  opinions  expressed  by  competent  ob- 
servers about  what  superficially  seem  to  be  similar  facts. 
It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  allowance  must  be 
made  for  the  individual  variability  in  the  traits  and  char- 
acters of  animals  of  the  same  species,  and  especially  of 
the  same  species  under  different  circumstances  and  in  dif- 
ferent localities;  and  allowance  must  also  be  made  for 
the  variability  of  the  individual  factor  in  the  observers 
themselves.  Many  seemingly  contradictory  observations 
of  the  habits  of  deer,  wapiti,  and  prongbuck  will  be 
found  in  books  by  the  best  hunters.  Take  such  questions 
as  the  keenness  of  sight  of  the  deer  as  compared  with  the 
prongbuck,  and  of  the  pugnacity  of  the  wapiti,  both  act- 
ual and  relative,  and  a  wide  difference  of  opinion  will  be 
found  in  three  such  standard  works  as  Dodge's  "  The 
Hunting-grounds  of  the  Great  West,"  Caton's  "  Deer  and 
Antelope  of  America,"  and  the  contributions  of  Mr. 
Grinnell  to  the  "  Century  Book  of  Sports."  Sometimes 
the  difference  will  be  in  mere  matters  of  opinion,  as,  for 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     137 

instance,  in  the  belief  as  to  the  relative  worth  of  the  sport 
furnished  by  the  chase  of  the  different  creatures;  but 
sometimes  there  is  a  direct  conflict  of  fact.  Colonel 
Dodge,  for  instance,  has  put  it  upon  record  that  the  wapiti 
is  an  exceedingly  gentle  animal,  less  dangerous  than  a 
whitetail  or  blacktail  buck  in  a  close  encounter,  and  that 
the  bulls  hardly  ever  fight  among  themselves.  My  own 
experience  leads  me  to  traverse  in  the  most  emphatic 
manner  every  one  of  these  conclusions,  and  all  hunters 
whom  I  have  met  feel  exactly  as  I  do;  yet  no  one  would 
question  for  a  moment  Colonel  Dodge's  general  com- 
petency as  an  observer.  In  the  same  way  Mr.  Grinnell 
has  a  high  opinion  of  the  deer's  keenness  of  sight.  Judge 
Caton  absolutely  disagrees  with  him,  and  my  own  ex- 
perience tends  to  agree  with  that  of  the  Judge — at  least 
to  the  extent  of  placing  the  deer's  vision  far  below  that 
of  the  prongbuck  and  even  that  of  the  bighorn,  and  only 
on  a  par  with  that  of  the  wapiti.  Yet  Mr.  Grinnell  is 
an  unusually  competent  observer,  whose  opinion  on  any 
such  subject  is  entitled  to  unqualified  respect. 

Difference  in  habits  may  be  due  simply  to  difference 
of  locality,  or  to  the  need  of  adaptation  to  new  conditions. 
The  prongbuck's  habits  about  migration  offer  examples 
of  the  former  kind  of  difference.  Over  portions  of  its 
range  the  prongbuck  is  not  migratory  at  all.  In  other 
parts  the  migrations  are  purely  local.  In  yet  other  re- 
gions the  migrations  are  continued  for  great  distances,  im- 
mense multitudes  of  the  animals  going  to  and  fro  in  the 
spring  and  fall  along  well-beaten  tracks.  I  know  of  one 
place  in  New  Mexico  where  the  pronghorn  herds  are  ten- 


138  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ants  of  certain  great  plains  throughout  the  entire  year.  I 
know  another  region  in  northwestern  Colorado  where  the 
very  few  prongbucks  still  left,  though  they  shift  from  val- 
ley to  valley,  yet  spend  the  whole  year  in  the  same  stretch 
of  rolling,  barren  country.  On  the  Little  Missouri,  how- 
ever, during  the  eighties  and  early  nineties,  there  was 
a  very  distinct  though  usually  local  migration.  Before 
the  Black  Hills  had  been  settled  they  were  famous  win- 
tering places  for  the  antelope,  which  swarmed  from 
great  distances  to  them  when  cold  weather  approached; 
those  which  had  summered  east  of  the  Big  Missouri  actu- 
ally swam  the  river  in  great  herds,  on  their  journey  to 
the  Hills.  The  old  hunters  around  my  ranch  insisted 
that  formerly  the  prongbuck  had  for  the  most  part  trav- 
elled from  the  Little  Missouri  Bad  Lands  into  the  Black 
Hills  for  the  winter. 

When  I  was  ranching  on  that  river,  however,  this 
custom  no  longer  obtained,  for  the  Black  Hills  were  too 
well  settled,  and  the  herds  of  prongbuck  that  wintered 
there  were  steadily  diminishing  in  numbers.  At  that 
time,  from  1883  to  1896,  the  seasonal  change  in  habits, 
and  shift  of  position,  of  the  prongbucks  were  well 
marked.  As  soon  as  the  new  grass  sprang  they  appeared 
in  great  numbers  upon  the  plains.  They  were  especially 
fond  of  the  greeri,  tender  blades  that  came  up  where  the 
country  had  been  burned  over.  If  the  region  had  been 
devastated  by  prairie  fires  in  the  fall,  the  next  spring  it 
was  certain  to  contain  hundreds  and  thousands  of  prong- 
bucks. All  through  the  summer  they  remained  out  on 
these  great  open  plains,  coming  to  drink  at  the  little  pools 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     139 

in  the  creek  beds,  and  living  where  there  was  no  shelter 
of  any  kind.  As  winter  approached  they  began  to  gather 
in  bands.  Some  of  these  bands  apparently  had  regular 
wintering  places  to  the  south  of  us,  in  Pretty  Buttes  and 
beyond;  and  close  to  my  ranch,  at  the  crossing  of  the 
creek  called  Beaver,  there  were  certain  trails  which  these 
antelope  regularly  travelled,  northward  in  the  spring  and 
southward  in  the  fall.  But  other  bands  would  seek  out 
places  in  the  Bad  Lands  near  by,  gathering  together  on 
some  succession  of  plateaus  which  were  protected  by 
neighboring  hills  from  the  deep  drifts  of  snow.  Here 
they  passed  the  winter,  on  short  commons,  it  is  true  (they 
graze,  not  browsing  like  deer),  but  without  danger  of 
perishing  in  the  snow-drifts.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
skin  hunters  discovered  such  a  wintering  place,  they  were 
able  to  butcher  practically  the  entire  band,  if  they  so  de- 
sired, a§  the  prongbucks  were  always  most  reluctant  to 
leave  such  a  chosen  ground. 

Normally  the  prongbuck  avoids  both  broken  ground 
and  timber.  It  is  a  queer  animal,  with  keen  senses,  but 
with  streaks  of  utter  folly  in  its  character.  Time  and 
again  I  have  known  bands  rush  right  by  me,  when  I 
happened  to  surprise  them  feeding  near  timber  or  hills, 
and  got  between  them  and  the  open  plains.  The  animals 
could  have  escaped  without  the  least  difficulty  if  they  had 
been  willing  to  go  into  the  broken  country,  or  through 
even  a  few  rods  of  trees  and  brush ;  and  yet  they  preferred 
to  rush  madly  by  me  at  close  range,  in  order  to  get  out 
to  their  favorite  haunts.  But  nowadays  there  are  certain 
localities  where  the  prongbucks  spend  a  large  part  of 


140 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


their  time  in  the  timber  or  in  rough,  hilly  country,  feed- 
ing and  bringing  up  their  young  in  such  localities. 

Typically,  however,  the  prongbuck  is  preeminently  a 
beast  of  the  great  open  plains,  eating  their  harsh,  dry 
pasturage,  and  trusting  to  its  own  keen  senses  and  speed 
for  its  safety.  All  the  deer  are  fond  of  skulking;  the 
whitetail  preeminently  so.  The  prongbuck,  on  the  con- 
trary, never  endeavors  to  elude  observation.  Its  sole  aim 
is  to  be  able  to  see  its  enemies,  and  it  cares  nothing  what- 
ever about  its  enemies  seeing  it.  Its  coloring  is  very 
conspicuous,  and  is  rendered  still  more  so  by  its  habit 
of  erecting  the  white  hair  on  its  rump.  It  has  a  very 
erect  carriage,  and  when  it  thinks  itself  in  danger  it 
always  endeavors  to  get  on  some  crest  or  low  hill  from 
which  it  can  look  all  about.  The  big  bulging  eyes,  sit- 
uated at  the  base  of  the  horns,  scan  the  horizon  far  and 
near  like  twin  telescopes.  They  pick  out  an  object  at 
such  a  distance  that  it  would  entirely  escape  the  notice  of 
a  deer.  When  suspicious,  they  have  a  habit  of  barking, 
uttering  a  sound  something  like  "  kau,"  and  repeating 
it  again  and  again,  as  they  walk  up  and  down,  en- 
deavoring to  find  out  if  danger  lurks  in  the  unusual  ob- 
ject. They  are  extremely  curious,  and  in  the  old  days 
it  was  often  possible  to  lure  them  toward  the  hunter  by 
waving  a  red  handkerchief  to  and  fro  on  a  stick,  or  even 
by  lying  on  one's  back  and  kicking  the  legs.  Nowadays, 
however,  there  are  very  few  localities  indeed  in  which 
they  are  sufficiently  unsophisticated  to  make  it  worth 
while  trying  these  time-honored  tricks  of  the  long-van- 
ished trappers  and  hunters. 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE   COUNTRY    141 

Along  the  Little  Missouri  the  fawns,  sometimes  one 
and  sometimes  two  in  number,  were  dropped  in  May  or 
early  in  June.  At  that  time  the  antelope  were  usually 
found  in  herds  which  the  mother  did  not  leave  until  she 
was  about  to  give  birth  to  the  fawn.  During  the  first 
few  days  the  fawn's  safety  is  to  be  found  only  in  its  not 
attracting  attention.  During  this  time  it  normally  lies 
perfectly  flat  on  the  ground,  with  its  head  outstretched, 
and  makes  no  effort  to  escape.  While  out  on  the  spring 
round-up  I  have  come  across  many  of  these  fawns.  Once, 
in  company  with  several  cowboys,  I  was  riding  behind 
a  bunch  of  cattle  which,  as  we  hurried  them,  spread  out 
in  open  order  ahead  of  us.  Happening  to  cast  down  my 
eyes  I  saw  an  antelope  fawn  directly  ahead  of  me.  The 
bunch  of  cattle  had  passed  all  around  it,  but  it  made  not 
the  slightest  sign,  not  even  when  I  halted,  got  off  my 
pony,  and  took  it  up  in  my  arms.  It  was  useless  to  take 
it  to  camp  and  try  to  rear  it,  and  so  I  speedily  put  it 
down  again.  Scanning  the  neighborhood,  I  saw  the  doe 
hanging  about  some  half  a  mile  off,  and  when  I  looked 
back  from  the  next  divide  I  could  see  her  gradually  draw- 
ing near  to  the  fawn. 

If  taken  when  very  young,  antelope  make  cunning 
and  amusing  pets,  and  I  have  often  seen  them  around  the 
ranches.  There  was  one  in  the  ranch  of  a  Mrs.  Blank 
who  had  a  station  on  the  Deadwood  stage  line  some  eigh- 
teen years  ago.  She  was  a  great  worker  in  buckskin,  and 
I  got  her  to  make  me  the  buckskin  shirt  I  still  use.  There 
was  an  antelope  fawn  that  lived  at  the  house,  wandering 
wherever  it  wished ;  but  it  would  not  permit  me  to  touch 


142  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

it.  As  I  sat  inside  the  house  it  would  come  in  and  hop 
up  on  a  chair,  looking  at  me  sharply  all  the  while.  No 
matter  how  cautiously  I  approached,  I  could  never  put 
my  hand  upon  it,  as  at  the  last  moment  it  would  spring 
off  literally  as  quick  as  a  bird  would  fly.  One  of  my 
neighbors  on  the  Little  Missouri,  Mr.  Howard  Eaton, 
had  at  one  time  upon  his  ranch  three  little  antelope  whose 
foster-mother  was  a  sheep,  and  who  were  really  absurdly 
tame.  I  was  fond  of  patting  them  and  of  giving  them 
crusts,  and  the  result  was  that  they  followed  me  about 
so  closely  that  I  had  to  be  always  on  the  lookout  to  see 
that  I  did  not  injure  them.  They  were  on  excellent  terms 
with  the  dogs,  and  were  very  playful.  It  was  a  comic 
sight  to  see  them  skipping  and  hopping  about  the  old  ewe 
when  anything  happened  to  alarm  her  and  she  started  off 
at  a  clumsy  waddle.  Nothing  could  surpass  the  tameness 
of  the  antelope  that  are  now  under  Mr.  Hornaday's  care 
at  the  Bronx  Zoological  Garden  in  New  York.  The  last 
time  that  I  visited  the  garden  some  repairs  were  being 
made  inside  the  antelope  enclosure,  and  a  dozen  work- 
men had  gone  in  to  make  them.  The  antelope  regarded 
the  workmen  with  a  friendliness  and  curiosity  untem- 
pered  by  the  slightest  touch  of  apprehension.  When  the 
men  took  off  their  coats  the  little  creatures  would  nose 
them  over  to  see  if  they  contained  anything  edible,  and 
they  would  come  close  up  and  watch  the  men  plying  the 
pick  with  the  utmost  interest.  Mr.  Hornaday  took  us  in- 
side, and  they  all  came  up  in  the  most  friendly  manner. 
One  or  two  of  the  bucks  would  put  their  heads  against 
our  legs  and  try  to  push  us  around,  but  not  roughly.  Mr. 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY    143 

Hornaday  told  me  that  he  was  having  great  difficulty, 
exactly  as  with  the  mule-deer,  in  acclimatizing  the  ante- 
lope, especially  as  the  food  was  so  different  from  what 
they  were  accustomed  to  in  their  native  haunts. 

The  wild  fawns  are  able  to  run  well  a  few  days  after 
they  are  born.  They  then  accompany  the  mother  every- 
where. Sometimes  she  joins  a  band  of  others ;  more  often 
she  stays  alone  with  her  fawn,  and  perhaps  one  of  the 
young  of  the  previous  year,  until  the  rut  begins.  Of  all 
game  the  prongbuck  seems  to  me  the  most  excitable  dur- 
ing the  rut.  The  males  run  the  does  much  as  do  the 
bucks  of  the  mule  and  whitetail  deer.  If  there  are  no 
does  present,  I  have  sometimes  watched  a  buck  run  to 
and  fro  by  himself.  The  first  time  I  saw  this  I  was 
greatly  interested,  and  could  form  no  idea  of  what  the 
buck  was  doing.  He  was  by  a  creek  bed  in  a  slight  de- 
pression or  shallow  valley,  and  was  grazing  uneasily. 
After  a  little  while  he  suddenly  started  and  ran  just  as 
hard  as  he  could,  off  in  a  straight  direction,  nearly  away 
from  me.  I  thought  that  somehow  or  other  he  had  dis- 
covered my  presence;  but  he  suddenly  wheeled  and  came 
back  to  the  original  place,  still  running  at  his  utmost 
speed.  Then  he  halted,  moved  about  with  the  white 
hairs  on  his  rump  outspread,  and  again  dashed  off  at  full 
speed,  halted,  wheeled,  and  came  back.  Two  or  three 
times  he  did  this,  and  let  me  get  very  close  to  him  be- 
fore he  discovered  me.  I  was  too  much  interested  in 
what  he  was  doing  to  desire  to  shoot  him. 

In  September,  sometimes  not  earlier  than  October, 
the  big  bucks  begin  to  gather  the  does  into  harems.    Each 


I44  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

buck  is  then  constantly  on  the  watch  to  protect  his  harem 
from  outsiders,  and  steal  another  doe  if  he  can  get  a 
chance.  I  have  seen  a  comparatively  young  buck  who 
had  appropriated  a  doe,  hustle  her  hastily  out  of  the 
country  as  soon  as  he  saw  another  antelope  in  the  neigh- 
borhood; while,  on  the  other  hand,  a  big  buck,  already 
with  a  good  herd  of  does,  will  do  his  best  to  appropriate 
any  other  that  comes  in  sight.  The  bucks  fight  fearlessly 
but  harmlessly  among  themselves,  locking  their  horns 
and  then  pushing  as  hard  as  they  can. 

Although  their  horns  are  not  very  formidable  weap- 
ons, they  are  bold  little  creatures,  and  if  given  a  chance 
will  stand  at  bay  before  either  hound  or  coyote.  A  doe 
will  fight  most  gallantly  for  her  fawn,  and  is  an  over- 
match for  a  single  coyote,  but  of  course  she  can  do  but  lit- 
tle against  a  large  wolf.  The  wolves  are  occasionally  very 
destructive  to  the  herds.  The  cougar,  however,  which 
is  a  much  worse  foe  than  the  wolf  to  deer  and  mountain 
sheep,  can  but  rarely  molest  the  prongbuck,  owing  to  the 
nature  of  the  latter's  haunts.  Eagles,  on  occasion,  take 
the  fawns,  as  they  do  those  of  deer. 

I  have  always  been  fond  of  the  chase  of  the  prong- 
buck.  While  I  lived  on  my  ranch  on  the  Little  Mis- 
souri it  was,  next  to  the  mule-deer,  the  game  which  I 
most  often  followed,  and  on  the  long  wagon  strips  which 
I  occasionally  took  from  my  ranch  to  the  Black  Hills, 
to  the  Big  Horn  Mountains,  or  into  eastern  Montana, 
prongbuck  venison  was  our  usual  fresh  meat,  save  when 
we  could  kill  prairie-chickens  and  ducks  with  our  rifles, 
which  was  not  always  feasible.  In  my  mind  the  prong- 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE   COUNTRY    145 

buck  is  always  associated  with  the  open  prairies  during 
the  spring,  summer,  or  early  fall.  It  has  happened  that 
I  have  generally  pursued  the  bighorn  in  bitter  weather; 
and  when  we  laid  in  our  stock  of  winter  meat,  mule- 
deer  was  our  usual  game.  Though  I  have  shot  prongbuck 
in  winter,  I  never  liked  to  do  so,  as  I  felt  the  animals 
were  then  having  a  sufficiently  hard  struggle  for  existence 
anyhow.  But  in  the  spring  the  meat  of  the  prongbuck 
was  better  than  that  of  any  other  game,  and,  moreover, 
there  was  not  the  least  danger  of  mistaking  the  sexes, 
and  killing  a  doe  accidentally,  and  accordingly  I  rarely 
killed  anything  but  pronghorns  at  that  season.  In  those 
days  we  never  got  any  fresh  meat,  whether  on  the  ranch  or 
while  on  the  round-up  or  on  a  wagon  trip,  unless  we  shot 
it,  and  salt  pork  became  a  most  monotonous  diet  after  a 
time. 

Occasionally  I  killed  the  prongbuck  in  a  day's  hunt 
from  my  ranch.  If  I  started  with  the  intention  of  prong- 
buck  hunting,  I  always  went  on  horseback;  but  twice  I 
killed  them  on  foot  when  I  happened  to  run  across  them 
by  accident  while  looking  for  mule-deer.  I  shall  always 
remember  one  of  these  occasions.  I  was  alone  in  the  Elk- 
horn  ranch-house  at  the  time,  my  foreman  and  the  only 
cowpuncher  who  was  not  on  the  round-up  having  driven 
to  Medora,  some  forty  miles  away,  in  order  to  bring  down 
the  foreman's  wife  and  sister,  who  were  going  to  spend 
the  summer  with  him.  It  was  the  fourth  day  of  his  ab- 
sence. I  expected  him  in  the  evening  and  wanted  to  have 
fresh  meat,  and  so  after  dinner  I  shouldered  my  rifle  and 
strolled  off  through  the  hills.  It  was  too  early  in  the 


146  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

day  to  expect  to  see  anything,  and  my  intention  was  sim- 
ply to  walk  out  until  I  was  five  or  six  miles  from  the 
ranch,  and  then  work  carefully  home  through  a  likely 
country  toward  sunset,  as  by  this  arrangement  I  would 
be  in  a  good  game  region  at  the  very  time  that  the  ani- 
mals were  likely  to  stir  abroad.  It  was  a  glaring,  late- 
spring  day,  and  in  the  hot  sun  of  mid-afternoon  I  had  no 
idea  that  anything  would  be  moving,  and  was  not  keep- 
ing a  very  sharp  lookout.  After  an  hour  or  two's  steady 
tramping  I  came  into  a  long,  narrow  valley,  bare  of  trees 
and  brushwood,  and  strolled  along  it,  following  a  cattle 
trail  that  led  up  the  middle.  The  hills  rose  steeply  into 
a  ridge  crest  on  each  side,  sheer  clay  shoulders  breaking 
the  mat  of  buffalo-grass  which  elsewhere  covered  the 
sides  of  the  valley  as  well  as  the  bottom.  It  was  very  hot 
and  still,  and  I  was  paying  but  little  attention  to  my  sur- 
roundings, when  my  eye  caught  a  sudden  movement  on 
the  ridge  crest  to  my  right,  and,  dropping  on  one  knee 
as  I  wheeled  around,  I  saw  the  head  and  neck  of  a  prong- 
buck  rising  above  the  crest.  The  animal  was  not  above 
a  hundred  yards  off,  and  stood  motionless  as  it  stared  at 
me.  At  the  crack  of  the  rifle  the  head  disappeared;  but 
as  I  sprang  clear  of  the  smoke  I  saw  a  cloud  of  dust  rise 
on  the  other  side  of  the  ridge  crest,  and  felt  convinced 
that  the  quarry  had  fallen.  I  was  right.  On  climbing 
the  ridge  crest  I  found  that  on  the  other  side  it  sank 
abruptly  in  a  low  cliff  of  clay,  and  at  the  foot  of  this, 
thirty  feet  under  me,  the  prongbuck  lay  with  its  neck 
broken.  After  dressing  it  I  shouldered  the  body  entire, 
thinking  that  I  should  like  to  impress  the  new-comers  by 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY    147 

the  sight  of  so  tangible  a  proof  of  my  hunting  prowess  as 
whole  prongbuck  hanging  up  in  the  cottonwoods  by  the 
house.  As  it  was  a  well-grown  buck  the  walk  home  un- 
der the  hot  sun  was  one  of  genuine  toil. 

The  spot  where  I  ran  across  this  prongbuck  was  miles 
away  from  the  nearest  plains,  and  it  was  very  unusual 
to  see  one  in  such  rough  country.  In  fact,  the  occurrence 
was  wholly  exceptional;  just  as  I  once  saw  three  bighorn 
rams,  which  usually  keep  to  the  roughest  country,  de- 
liberately crossing  the  river  bottom  below  my  ranch,  and 
going  for  half  a  mile  through  the  thick  cottonwood  tim- 
ber. Occasionally,  however,  parties  of  prongbuck  came 
down  the  creek  bottoms  to  the  river.  Once  I  struck  a 
couple  of  young  bucks  in  the  bottom  of  a  creek  which  led 
to  the  Chimney  Butte  ranch-house,  and  stalked  them 
without  difficulty;  for  as  prongbuck  make  no  effort  to 
hide,  if  there  is  good  cover  even  their  sharp  eyes  do  not 
avail  them.  On  another  occasion  several  does  and  fawns, 
which  we  did  not  molest,  spent  some  time  on  what  we 
called  "  the  corral  bottom,"  which  was  two  or  three  miles 
above  the  ranch-house.  In  the  middle  of  this  bottom  we 
had  built  a  corral  for  better  convenience  in  branding  the 
calves  when  the  round-up  came  near  our  ranch — as  the 
bottom  on  which  the  ranch-house  stood  was  so  thickly 
wooded  as  to  make  it  difficult  to  work  cattle  thereon. 
The  does  and  fawns  hung  around  the  corral  bottom  for 
some  little  time,  and  showed  themselves  very  curious  and 
by  no  means  shy. 

When  I  went  from  the  ranch  for  a  day's  prongbuck 
hunting  of  set  purpose,  I  always  rode  a  stout  horse  and 


148  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

started  by  dawn.  The  prongbucks  are  almost  the  only 
game  that  can  be  hunted  as  well  during  the  heat  of  the 
day  as  at  any  other  time.  They  occasionally  lie  down  for 
two  or  three  hours  about  noon  in  some  hollow  where  they 
cannot  be  seen,  but  usually  there  is  no  place  where  they 
are  sure  they  can  escape  observation  even  when  resting; 
and  when  this  is  the  case  they  choose  a  somewhat  con- 
spicuous station  and  trust  to  their  own  powers  of  observa- 
tion, exactly  as  they  do  when  feeding.  There  is  there- 
fore no  necessity,  as  with  deer,  of  trying  to  strike  them  at 
dawn  or  dusk.  The  reason  why  I  left  the  ranch  before 
sunrise  and  often  came  back  long  after  dark  was  because 
I  had  to  ride  at  least  a  dozen  miles  to  get  out  to  the  ground 
and  a  dozen  to  get  back,  and  if  after  industrious  walking 
I  failed  at  first  to  find  my  game,  I  would  often  take  the 
horse  again  and  ride  for  an  hour  or  two  to  get  into  new 
country.  Prongbuck  water  once  a  day,  often  travelling 
great  distances  to  or  from  some  little  pool  or  spring.  Of 
course,  if  possible,  I  liked  to  leave  the  horse  by  such  a 
pool  or  spring.  On  the  great  plains  to  which  I  used  to 
make  these  excursions  there  was  plenty  of  water  in  early 
spring,  and  it  would  often  run,  here  and  there,  in  the 
upper  courses  of  some  of  the  creeks — which,  however, 
usually  contained  running  water  only  when  there  had 
been  a  cloudburst  or  freshet.  As  the  season  wore  on  the 
country  became  drier  and  drier.  Water  would  remain 
only  in  an  occasional  deep  hole,  and  few  springs  were  left 
in  which  there  was  so  much  as  a  trickle.  In  a  strange 
country  I  could  not  tell  where  these  water-holes  were,  but 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  ranch  I  of  course  knew  where 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     149 

I  was  likely  to  find  them.  Often,  however,  I  was  disap- 
pointed; and  more  than  once  after  travelling  many  miles 
to  where  I  hoped  to  find  water,  there  would  be  nothing 
but  sun-cracked  mud,  and  the  horse  and  I  would  have 
eighteen  hours  of  thirst  in  consequence.  A  ranch  horse, 
however,  is  accustomed  to  such  incidents,  and  of  course 
when  a  man  spends  half  the  time  riding,  it  is  merely  a 
matter  of  slight  inconvenience  to  go  so  long  without  a 
drink. 

Nevertheless,  if  I  did  reach  a  spring,  it  turned  the 
expedition  into  pleasure  instead  of  toil.  Even  in  the  hot 
weather  the  ride  toward  the  plains  over  the  hills  was 
very  lovely.  It  was  beautiful  to  see  the  red  dawn  quicken 
from  the  first  glimmering  gray  in  the  east,  and  then  to 
watch  the  crimson  bars  glint  on  the  tops  of  the  fantasti- 
cally shaped  barren  hills  when  the  sun  flamed,  burning 
and  splendid,  above  the  horizon.  In  the  early  morning 
the  level  beams  threw  into  sharp  relief  the  strangely 
carved  and  channelled  cliff  walls  of  the  buttes.  There 
was  rarely  a  cloud  to  dim  the  serene  blue  of  the  sky.  By 
the  time  the  heat  had  grown  heavy  I  had  usually  reached 
the  spring  or  pool,  where  I  unsaddled  the  horse,  watered 
him,  and  picketed  him  out  to  graze.  Then,  under  the 
hot  sun,  I  would  stride  off  for  the  hunting  proper.  On 
such  occasions  I  never  went  to  where  the  prairie  was  ab- 
solutely flat.  There  were  always  gently  rolling  stretches 
broken  by  shallow  watercourses,  slight  divides,  and  even 
low  mounds,  sometimes  topped  with  strangely  shaped 
masses  of  red  scoria  or  with  petrified  trees.  My  object, 
of  course,  was,  either  with  my  unaided  eyes  or  with  the 


1 50  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

help  of  my  glasses,  to  catch  sight  of  the  prongbucks  be- 
fore they  saw  me.  I  speedily  found,  by  the  way,  that  if 
they  were  too  plentiful  this  was  almost  impossible.  The 
more  abundant  deer  are  in  a  given  locality  the  more  apt 
one  is  to  run  across  them,  and  of  course  if  the  country  is 
sufficiently  broken,  the  same  is  true  of  prongbucks;  but 
where  it  is  very  flat  and  there  are  many  different  bands  in 
sight  at  the  same  time,  it  is  practically  impossible  to  keep 
out  of  sight  of  all  of  them,  and  as  they  are  also  all  in 
sight  of  one  another,  if  one  flees  the  others  are  certain 
to  take  the  alarm.  Under  such  circumstances  I  have  usu- 
ally found  that  the  only  pronghorns  I  got  were  obtained 
by  accident,  so  to  speak;  that  is,  by  some  of  them  unex- 
pectedly running  my  way,  or  by  my  happening  to  come 
across  them  in  some  nook  where  I  could  not  see  them,  or 
they  me. 

Prongbucks  are  very  fast  runners  indeed,  even  faster 
than  deer.  They  vary  greatly  in  speed,  however,  precise- 
ly as  is  the  case  with  deer;  in  fact,  I  think  that  the  aver- 
age hunter  makes  altogether  too  little  account  of  this 
individual  variation  among  different  animals  of  the  same 
kind.  Under  the  same  conditions  different  deer  and  ante- 
lope vary  in  speed  and  wariness,  exactly  as  bears  and  cou- 
gars vary  in  cunning  and  ferocity.  When  in  perfect  con- 
dition a  full-grown  buck  antelope,  from  its  strength  and 
size,  is  faster  and  more  enduring  than  an  old  doe;  but  a 
fat  buck,  before  the  rut  has  begun,  will  often  be  pulled 
down  by  a  couple  of  good  greyhounds  much  more  speed- 
ily than  a  flying  yearling  or  two-year-old  doe.  Under 
favorable  circumstances,  when  the  antelope  was  jumped 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     151 

near  by,  I  have  seen  one  overhauled  and  seized  by  a  first- 
class  greyhound;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  more 
than  once  seen  a  pronghorn  run  away  from  a  whole  pack 
of  just  as  good  dogs.  With  a  fair  start,  and  on  good 
ground,  a  thoroughbred  horse,  even  though  handi- 
capped by  the  weight  of  a  rider,  will  run  down  an  ante- 
lope; but  this  is  a  feat  which  should  rarely  be  attempted, 
because  such  a  race,  even  when  carried  to  a  successful 
issue,  is  productive  of  the  utmost  distress  to  the  steed. 

Ordinary  horses  will  sometimes  run  down  an  antelope 
which  is  slower  than  the  average.  I  once  had  on  my 
ranch  an  under-sized  old  Indian  pony  named  White 
Eye,  which,  when  it  was  fairly  roused,  showed  a  remark- 
able turn  of  speed,  and  had  great  endurance.  One  morn- 
ing on  the  round-up,  when  for  some  reason  we  did  not 
work  the  cattle,  I  actually  ran  down  an  antelope  in  fair 
chase  on  this  old  pony.  It  was  a  nursing  doe,  and  I  came 
over  the  crest  of  the  hill,  between  forty  and  fifty  yards 
away  from  it.  As  it  wheeled  to  start  back,  the  old  cayuse 
pricked  up  his  ears  with  great  interest,  and  the  moment 
I  gave  him  a  sign  was  after  it  like  a  shot.  Whether,  being 
a  cow-pony,  he  started  to  run  it  just  as  if  it  were  a  calf 
or  a  yearling  trying  to  break  out  of  the  herd,  or  whether 
he  was  overcome  by  dim  reminiscences  of  buffalo-hunt- 
ing in  his  Indian  youth,  I  know  not.  At  any  rate,  after 
the  doe  he  went,  and  in  a  minute  or  two  I  found  I  was 
drawing  up  to  her.  I  had  a  revolver,  but  of  course  did 
not  wish  to  kill  her,  and  so  got  my  rope  ready  to  try  to 
take  her  alive.  She  ran  frantically,  but  the  old  pony, 
bending  level  to  the  ground,  kept  up  his  racing  lope  and 


1 52  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

closed  right  in  beside  her.  As  I  came  up  she  fairly 
bleated.  An  expert  with  the  rope  would  have  captured 
her  with  the  utmost  ease;  but  I  missed,  sending  the  coil 
across  her  shoulders.  She  again  gave  an  agonized  bleat, 
or  bark,  and  wheeled  around  like  a  shot.  The  cow-pony 
stopped  almost,  but  not  quite,  as  fast,  and  she  got  a  slight 
start,  and  it  was  some  little  time  before  I  overhauled  her 
again.  When  I  did  I  repeated  the  performance,  and  this 
time  when  she  wheeled  she  succeeded  in  getting  on  some 
ground  where  I  could  not  follow,  and  I  was  thrown  out. 

Normally,  a  horseman  without  greyhounds  can  hope 
for  nothing  more  than  to  get  within  fair  shooting  range; 
and  this  only  by  taking  advantage  of  the  prongbucks' 
peculiarity  of  running  straight  ahead  in  the  direction  in 
which  they  are  pointed,  when  once  they  have  settled  into 
their  pace.  Usually,  as  soon  as  they  see  a  hunter  they  run 
straight  away  from  him;  but  sometimes  they  make  their 
flight  at  an  angle,  and  as  they  do  not  like  to  change  their 
course  when  once  started,  it  is  thus  possible,  with  a  good, 
horse,  to  cut  them  off  from  the  point  toward  which  they 
are  headed,  and  get  a  reasonably  close  shot. 

I  have  done  a  good  deal  of  coursing  with  greyhounds 
at  one  time  or  another,  but  always  with  scratch  packs. 
There  are  a  few  ranchmen  who  keep  leashes  of  grey- 
hounds of  pure  blood,  bred  and  trained  to  antelope  cours- 
ing, and  who  do  their  coursing  scientifically,  carrying  the 
dogs  out  to  the  hunting-grounds  in  wagons  and  exercis- 
ing every  care  in  the  sport;  but  these  men  are  rare.  The 
average  man  who  dwells  where  antelope  are  sufficiently 
abundant  to  make  coursing  a  success,  simply  follows  the 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE   COUNTRY     153 

pursuit  at  odd  moments,  with  whatever  long-legged  dogs 
he  and  his  neighbors  happen  to  have;  and  his  methods  of 
coursing  are  apt  to  be  as  rough  as  his  outfit.  My  own 
coursing  was  precisely  of  this  character.  At  different 
times  I  had  on  my  ranch  one  or  two  high-classed  grey- 
hounds and  Scotch  deerhounds,  with  which  we  coursed 
deer  and  antelope,  as  well  as  jack-rabbits,  foxes,  and 
coyotes;  and  we  usually  had  with  them  one  or  two  or- 
dinary hounds,  and  various  half-bred  dogs.  I  must  add, 
however,  that  some  of  the  latter  were  very  good.  I  can 
recall  in  particular  one  fawn-colored  beast,  a  cross  be- 
tween a  greyhound  and  a  foxhound,  which  ran  nearly 
as  fast  as  the  former,  though  it  occasionally  yelped  in 
shrill  tones.  It  could  also  trail  well,  and  was  thoroughly 
game;  on  one  occasion  it  ran  down  and  killed  a  coyote 
single-handed. 

On  going  out  with  these  dogs,  I  rarely  chose  a  day 
when  I  was  actually  in  need  of  fresh  meat.  If  this  was 
the  case,  I  usually  went  alone  with  the  rifle;  but  if  one 
or  two  other  men  were  at  the  ranch,  and  we  wanted  a 
morning's  fun,  we  would  often  summon  the  dogs,  mount 
our  horses,  and  go  trooping  out  to  the  antelope-ground. 
As  there  was  good  deer-country  between  the  ranch  bot- 
tom and  the  plains  where  we  found  the  prongbuck,  it  not 
infrequently  happened  that  we  had  a  chase  after  black- 
tail  or  whitetail  on  the  way.  Moreover,  when  we  got  out 
to  the  ground,  before  sighting  antelope,  it  frequently  hap- 
pened that  the  dogs  would  jump  a  jack-rabbit  or  a  fox, 
and  away  the  whole  set  would  go  after  it,  streaking 
through  the  short  grass,  sometimes  catching  their  prey 


I54  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

in  a  few  hundred  yards,  and  sometimes  having  to  run  a 
mile  or  so.  In  consequence,  by  the  time  we  reached  the 
regular  hunting-ground  the  dogs  were  apt  to  have  lost 
a  good  deal  of  their  freshness.  We  would  get  them  in 
behind  the  horses  and  creep  cautiously  along,  trying  to 
find  some  solitary  prongbuck  in  a  suitable  place,  where 
we  could  bring  up  the  dogs  from  behind  a  hillock  and 
give  them  a  fair  start.  Usually  we  failed  to  get  the  dogs 
near  enough  for  a  good  start;  and  in  most  cases  their 
chases  after  unwounded  prongbuck  resulted  in  the  quarry 
running  clean  away  from  them.  Thus  the  odds  were 
greatly  against  them;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  we  helped 
them  wherever  possible  with  the  rifle.  We  usually  rode 
well  scattered  out,  and  if  one  of  us  put  up  an  antelope, 
or  had  a  chance  at  one  when  driven  by  the  dogs,  he 
always  fired,  and  the  pack  were  saved  from  the  ill  effects 
of  total  discouragement  by  so  often  getting  these  wounded 
beasts.  It  was  astonishing  to  see  how  fast  an  antelope 
with  a  broken  leg  could  run.  If  such  a  beast  had  a  good 
start,  and  especially  if  the  dogs  were  tired,  it  would  often 
lead  them  a  hard  chase,  and  the  dogs  would  be  utterly 
exhausted  after  it  had  been  killed;  so  that  we  would  have 
to  let  them  lie  where  they  were  for  a  long  time  before 
trying  to  lead  them  down  to  some  stream-bed.  If  pos- 
sible, we  carried  water  for  them  in  canteens. 

There  were  red-letter  days,  however,  on  which  our 
dogs  fairly  ran  down  and  killed  unwounded  antelope — 
days  when  the  weather  was  cool,  and  when  it  happened 
that  we  got  our  dogs  out  to  the  ground  without  their  being 
tired  by  previous  runs,  and  found  our  quarry  soon,  and 


HUNTING   IN    CATTLE   COUNTRY    155 

in  favorable  places  for  slipping  the  hounds.  I  remember 
one  such  chase  in  particular.  We  had  at  the  time  a  mixed 
pack,  in  which  there  was  only  one  dog  of  my  own,  the 
others  being  contributed  from  various  sources.  It  in- 
cluded two  greyhounds,  a  rough-coated  deerhound,  a  fox- 
hound, and  the  fawn-colored  cross-bred  mentioned  above. 
We  rode  out  in  the  early  morning,  the  dogs  trotting 
behind  us;  and,  coming  to  a  low  tract  of  rolling  hills, 
just  at  the  edge  of  the  great  prairie,  we  separated  and 
rode  over  the  crest  of  the  nearest  ridge.  Just  as  we  topped 
it,  a  fine  buck  leaped  up  from  a  hollow  a  hundred  yards 
off,  and  turned  to  look  at  us  for  a  moment.  All  the  dogs 
were  instantly  spinning  toward  him  down  the  grassy 
slope.  He  apparently  saw  those  at  the  right,  and,  turn- 
ing, raced  away  from  us  in  a  diagonal  line,  so  that  the 
left-hand  greyhound,  which  ran  cunning  and  tried  to 
cut  him  off,  was  very  soon  almost  alongside.  He  saw  her, 
however — she  was  a  very  fast  bitch — just  in  time,  and, 
wheeling,  altered  his  course  to  the  right.  As  he  reached 
the  edge  of  the  prairie,  this  alteration  nearly  brought  him 
in  contact  with  the  cross-bred,  which  had  obtained  a  rather 
poor  start,  on  the  extreme  right  of  the  line.  Around  went 
the  buck  again,  evidently  panic-struck  and  puzzled  to 
the  last  degree,  and  started  straight  off  across  the  prairie, 
the  dogs  literally  at  his  heels,  and  we,  urging  our  horses 
with  whip  and  spur,  but  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  be- 
hind. For  half  a  mile  the  pace  was  tremendous,  when 
one  of  the  greyhounds  made  a  spring  at  his  ear,  but  fail- 
ing to  make  good  his  hold,  was  thrown  off.  However, 
it  halted  the  buck  for  a  moment,  and  made  him  turn 


156  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

quarter  round,  and  in  a  second  the  deerhound  had  seized 
him  by  the  flank  and  thrown  him,  and  all  the  dogs  piled 
on  top,  never  allowing  him  to  rise. 

Later  we  again  put  up  a  buck  not  far  off.  At  first 
it  went  slowly,  and  the  dogs  hauled  up  on  it;  but  when 
they  got  pretty  close,  it  seemed  to  see  them,  and  letting 
itself  out,  went  clean  away  from  them  almost  without 
effort. 

Once  or  twice  we  came  upon  bands  of  antelope,  and 
the  hounds  would  immediately  take  after  them.  I  was 
always  rather  sorry  for  this,  however,  because  the  fright- 
ened animals,  as  is  generally  the  case  when  beasts  are 
in  a  herd,  seemed  to  impede  one  another,  and  the  chase 
usually  ended  by  the  dogs  seizing  a  doe,  for  it  was  of 
course  impossible  to  direct  them  to  any  particular  beast. 

It  will  be  seen  that  with  us  coursing  was  a  homely 
sport.  Nevertheless  we  had  good  fun,  and  I  shall  always 
have  enjoyable  memories  of  the  rapid  gallops  across  the 
prairie,  on  the  trail  of  a  flying  prongbuck. 

Usually  my  pronghorn  hunting  has  been  done  while 
I  have  been  off  with  a  wagon  on  a  trip  intended  prima- 
rily for  the  chase,  or  else  while  travelling  for  some  other 
purpose. 

All  life  in  the  wilderness  is  so  pleasant  that  the 
temptation  is  to  consider  each  particular  variety,  while 
one  is  enjoying  it,  as  better  than  any  other.  A  canoe  trip 
through  the  great  forests,  a  trip  with  a  pack-train  among 
the  mountains,  a  trip  on  snow-shoes  through  the  silent, 
mysterious  fairyland  of  the  woods  in  winter — each  has 
its  peculiar  charm.  To  some  men  the  sunny  monotony 


-  • 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     157 

of  the  great  plains  is  wearisome;  personally  there  are  few 
things  I  have  enjoyed  more  than  journeying  over  them 
where  the  game  was  at  all  plentiful.  Sometimes  I  have 
gone  off  for  three  or  four  days  alone  on  horseback,  with 
a  slicker  or  oilskin  coat  behind  the  saddle,  and  some  salt 
and  hardtack  as  my  sole  provisions.  But  for  comfort  on 
a  trip  of  any  length  it  was  always  desirable  to  have  a 
wagon.  My  regular  outfit  consisted  of  a  wagon  and  team 
driven  by  one  man  who  cooked,  together  with  another 
man  and  four  riding  ponies,  two  of  which  we  rode,  while 
the  other  two  were  driven  loose  or  led  behind  the  wagon. 
While  it  is  eminently  desirable  that  a  hunter  should  be 
able  to  rough  it,  and  should  be  entirely  willing  to  put 
up  with  the  bare  minimum  of  necessities,  and  to  undergo 
great  fatigue  and  hardship,  it  is  yet  not  at  all  necessary 
that  he  should  refrain  from  comfort  of  a  wholesome  sort 
when  it  is  obtainable.  By  taking  the  wagon  we  could 
carry  a  tent  to  put  up  if  there  was  foul  weather.  I  had 
a  change  of  clothes  to  put  on  if  I  was  wet,  two  or  three 
books  to  read — and  nothing  adds  more  to  the  enjoyment 
of  a  hunting  trip — as  well  as  plenty  of  food ;  while  having 
two  men  made  me  entirely  foot-loose  as  regards  camp, 
so  that  I  could  hunt  whenever  I  pleased,  and,  if  I  came 
in  tired,  I  simply  rested,  instead  of  spending  two  or  three 
hours  in  pitching  camp,  cooking,  tethering  horses,  and 
doing  the  innumerable  other  little  things  which  in  the 
aggregate  amount  to  so  much. 

On  such  a  trip,  when  we  got  into  unknown  country, 
it  was  of  course  very  necessary  to  stay  near  the  wagon, 
especially  if  we  had  to  hunt  for  water.  But  if  we  knew 


158  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  country  at  all,  we  would  decide  in  the  morning  about 
where  the  camp  was  to  be  made  in  the  afternoon,  and 
then  I  would  lope  off  on  my  own  account,  while  the 
wagon  lumbered  slowly  across  the  rough  prairie  sward 
straight  toward  its  destination.  Sometimes  I  took  the 
spare  man  with  me,  and  sometimes  not.  It  was  conven- 
ient to  have  him,  for  there  are  continually  small  emer- 
gencies in  which  it  is  well  to  be  with  a  companion.  For 
instance,  if  one  jumps  off  for  a  sudden  shot,  there  is  al- 
ways a  slight  possibility  that  any  but  a  thoroughly  trained 
horse  will  get 'frightened  and  gallop  away.  On  some  of 
my  horses  I  could  absolutely  depend,  but  there  were 
others,  and  very  good  ones  too,  which  would  on  rare  occa- 
sions fail  me;  and  few  things  are  more  disheartening 
than  a  long  stern  chase  after  one's  steed  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, with  the  unpleasant  possibility  of  seeing  him 
leave  the  country  entirely  and  strike  out  for  the  ranch 
fifty  or  sixty  miles  distant.  If  there  is  a  companion  with 
one,  all  danger  of  this  is  over.  Moreover,  in  galloping 
at  full  speed  after  the  game  it  is  impossible  now  and  then 
to  avoid  a  tumble,  as  the  horse  may  put  his  leg  into  a 
prairie-dog  hole  or  badger  burrow;  and  on  such  occasions 
a  companion  may  come  in  very  handily.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  so  great  a  charm  in  absolute  solitude,  in  the 
wild,  lonely  freedom  of  the  great  plains,  that  often  I 
would  make  some  excuse  and  go  off  entirely  by  myself. 

Such  rides  had  a  fascination  of  their  own.  Hour  after 
hour  the  wiry  pony  shuffled  onward  across  the  sea  of 
short,  matted  grass.  On  every  side  the  plains  stretched 
seemingly  limitless.  Sometimes  there  would  be  no  ob- 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE   COUNTRY    159 

ject  to  break  the  horizon;  sometimes  across  a  score  of 
miles  there  would  loom  through  the  clear  air  the  fantastic 
outlines  of  a  chain  of  buttes,  rising  grim  and  barren.  Oc- 
casionally there  might  be  a  slightly  marked  watercourse, 
every  drop  of  moisture  long  dried;  and  usually  there 
would  not  be  as  much  as  the  smallest  sage  brush  anywhere 
in  sight.  As  the  sun  rose  higher  and  higher  the  shadows 
of  horse  and  rider  shortened,  and  the  beams  were  reflected 
from  the  short,  bleached  blades  until  in  the  hot  air  all 
the  landscape  afar  off  seemed  to  dance  and  waver.  Often 
on  such  trips  days  went  by  without  our  coming  across 
another  human  being,  and  the  loneliness  and  vastness  of 
the  country  seemed  as  unbroken  as  if  the  old  vanished 
days  had  returned — the  days  of  the  wild  wilderness  wan- 
derers, and  the  teeming  myriads  of  game  they  followed, 
and  the  scarcely  wilder  savages  against  whom  they 
warred. 

Now  and  then  prongbuck  would  appear,  singly  or 
in  bands;  and  their  sharp  bark  of  alarm  or  curiosity 
would  come  to  me  through  the  still,  hot  air  over  great 
distances,  as  they  stood  with  head  erect  looking  at  me, 
the  white  patches  on  their  rumps  shining  in  the  sun,  and 
the  bands  and  markings  on  their  heads  and  necks  show- 
ing as  if  they  were  in  livery.  Scan  the  country  as  care- 
fully as  I  would,  they  were  far  more  apt  to  see  me  than 
I  was  them,  and  once  they  had  seen  me,  it  was  normally 
hopeless  to  expect  to  get  them.  But  their  strange  freak- 
ishness  of  nature  frequently  offsets  the  keenness  of  their 
senses.  At  least  half  of  the  prongbucks  which  I  shot  were 
obtained,  not  by  stalking,  but  by  coming  across  them 


160  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

purely  through  their  own  fault.  Though  the  prairie 
seemed  level,  there  was  really  a  constant  series  of  un- 
dulations, shallow  and  of  varying  width.  Now  and  then 
as  I  topped  some  slight  rise  I  would  catch  a  glimpse  of 
a  little  band  of  pronghorns  feeding,  and  would  slip  off 
my  horse  before  they  could  see  me.  A  hasty  determina- 
tion as  to  where  the  best  chance  of  approaching  them  lay 
would  be  followed  by  a  half-hour's  laborious  crawl,  a 
good  part  of  the  time  flat  on  my  face.  They  might  dis- 
cover me  when  I  was  still  too  far  for  a  shot;  or  by  taking 
advantage  of  every  little  inequality  I  might  get  within 
long  range  before  they  got  a  glimpse  of  me,  and  then  in 
a  reasonable  proportion  of  cases  I  would  bag  my  buck. 
At  other  times  the  buck  would  come  to  me.  Perhaps  one 
would  suddenly  appear  over  a  divide  himself,  and  his 
curiosity  would  cause  him  to  stand  motionless  long 
enough  to  give  me  a  shot;  while  on  other  occasions  I 
have  known  one  which  was  out  of  range  to  linger  around, 
shifting  his  position  as  I  shifted  mine,  until  by  some  sud- 
den gallop  or  twist  I  was  able  to  get  close  enough  to 
empty  my  magazine  at  him. 

When  the  shadows  had  lengthened,  but  before  any 
coolness  had  come  into  the  air,  I  would  head  for  the  ap- 
pointed camping-place.  Sometimes  this  would  be  on 
the  brink  of  some  desolate  little  pool  under  a  low,  tree- 
less butte,  or  out  on  the  open  prairie  where  the  only  wood 
was  what  we  had  brought  with  us.  At  other  times  I 
would  find  the  wagon  drawn  up  on  the  edge  of  some 
shrunken  plains  river,  under  a  line  of  great  cottonwoods 
with  splintered  branches  and  glossy  leaves  that  rustled 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     161 

all  day  long.  Such  a  camp  was  always  comfortable,  for 
there  was  an  abundance  of  wood  for  the  fire,  plenty  of 
water,  and  thick  feed  in  which  the  horses  grazed — one 
or  two  being  picketed  and  the  others  feeding  loose  until 
night  came  on.  If  I  had  killed  a  prongbuck,  steaks  were 
speedily  sizzling  in  the  frying-pan  over  the  hot  coals. 
If  I  had  failed  to  get  anything,  I  would  often  walk  a 
mile  or  two  down  or  up  the  river  to  see  if  I  could  not 
kill  a  couple  of  prairie-chickens  or  ducks.  If  the  even- 
ing was  at  all  cool,  we  built  a  fire  as  darkness  fell,  and 
sat  around  it,  while  the  leaping  flames  lit  up  the  trunks 
of  the  cottonwoods  and  gleamed  on  the  pools  of  water 
in  the  half-dry  river  bed.  Then  I  would  wrap  myself 
in  my  blanket  and  lie  looking  up  at  the  brilliant  stars 
until  I  fell  asleep. 

In  both  1893  anc*  1894  I  made  trips  to  a  vast  tract  of 
rolling  prairie  land,  some  fifty  miles  from  my  ranch, 
where  I  had  for  many  years  enjoyed  the  keen  pleasure 
of  hunting  the  prongbuck.  In  1893  the  pronghorned 
bands  were  as  plentiful  in  this  district  as  I  have  ever  seen 
them  anywhere.  Lambert  was  with  me;  and  in  a  week's 
trip,  including  the  journey  out  and  back,  we  easily  shot 
all  the  antelope  we  felt  we  had  any  right  to  kill;  for  we 
only  shot  to  get  meat,  or  an  unusually  fine  head.  Lambert 
did  most  of  the  shooting;  and  I  have  never  seen  a  profes- 
sional hunter  do  better  in  stalking  antelope  on  the  open 
prairie.  I  myself  fired  at  only  two  antelope,  both  of 
which  had  already  been  missed.  In  each  case  a  hard  run 
and  much  firing  at  long  ranges,  together  with  in  one  case 
some  skilful  manoeuvring,  got  me  my  game;  yet  one  buck 


1 62  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

cost  ten  cartridges  and  the  other  eight.  In  1894  I  had  ex- 
actly the  reverse  experience.  I  killed  five  antelope  for 
thirty-six  shots,  but  each  one  that  I  killed  was  killed  with 
the  first  bullet,  and  in  not  one  case  where  I  missed  the 
first  time  did  I  hit  with  any  subsequent  shot.  These  five 
antelope  were  killed  at  an  average  distance  of  about  150 
yards.  Those  that  I  missed  were,  of  course,  much  farther 
off  on  an  average,  and  I  usually  emptied  my  magazine  at 
each.  The  number  of  cartridges  spent  would  seem  ex- 
traordinary to  a  tyro;  and  an  unusually  skilful  shot,  or 
else  a  very  timid  shot  who  fears  to  take  risks,  will  of  course 
make  a  better  showing  per  head  killed;  but  I  doubt  if 
men  with  experience  in  antelope  hunting,  who  keep  an 
accurate  account  of  the  cartridges  they  expend,  will  see 
anything  much  out  of  the  way  in  the  performance. 

During  the  years  I  have  hunted  in  the  West  I  have 
always,  where  possible,  kept  a  record  of  the  number  of 
cartridges  expended  for  every  head  of  game  killed,  and 
of  the  distances  at  which  it  was  shot.  I  have  found  that 
with  bison,  bear,  moose,  elk,  caribou,  bighorn  and  white 
goat,  where  the  animals  shot  at  were  mostly  of  large  size 
and  usually  stationary,  and  where  the  mountainous  or 
wooded  country  gave  chance  for  a  close  approach,  the 
average  distance  at  which  I  have  killed  the  game  has  been 
eighty  yards,  and  the  average  number  of  cartridges  ex- 
pended per  head  slain,  three ;  one  of  these  representing  the 
death-shot,  and  the  others  standing  either  for  misses  out- 
right, of  which  there  were  not  many,  or  else  for  wounding 
game  which  escaped,  or  which  I  afterward  overtook,  or 
for  stopping  cripples  or  charging  beasts.  I  have  killed 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     163 

but  two  peccaries,  using  but  one  cartridge  for  each ;  they 
were  close  up.  My  experiences  with  cougar  have  already 
been  narrated.  At  wolves  and  coyotes  I  have  generally 
had  to  take  running  shots  at  very  long  range,  and  I  have 
shot  but  two — one  of  each — for  fifty  cartridges.  Blacktail 
deer  I  have  generally  shot  at  about  ninety  yards,  at  an  ex- 
penditure of  about  four  cartridges  apiece.  Whitetail  I 
have  killed  at  shorter  range;  but  the  shots  were  generally 
running,  often  taken  under  difficult  circumstances,  so  that 
my  expenditure  of  cartridges  was  rather  larger.  Ante- 
lope, on  the  other  hand,  I  have  on  the  average  shot  at  a  lit- 
tle short  of  150  yards,  and  they  have  cost  me  about  nine 
cartridges  apiece.  This,  of  course,  as  I  have  explained 
above,  does  not  mean  that  I  have  missed  eight  out  of  nine 
antelope,  for  often  the  entire  nine  cartridges  would  be 
spent  at  an  antelope  which  I  eventually  got.  It  merely 
means  that,  counting  all  the  shots  of  every  description 
fired  at  antelope,  I  had  one  head  to  show  for  each  nine 
cartridges  expended. 

Thus,  the  first  antelope  I  shot  in  1893  cost  me  ten 
cartridges,  of  which  three  hit  him,  while  the  seven  that 
missed  were  fired  at  over  400  yards'  distance  while  he  was 
running.  We  saw  him  while  we  were  with  the  wagon. 
As  we  had  many  miles  to  go  before  sunset,  we  cared 
nothing  about  frightening  other  game,  and,  as  we  had 
no  fresh  meat,  it  was  worth  while  to  take  some  chances 
to  procure  it.  When  I  first  fired,  the  prongbuck  had  al- 
ready been  shot  at  and  was  in  full  flight.  He  was  beyond 
all  reasonable  range,  but  some  of  our  bullets  went  over 
him  and  he  began  to  turn.  By  running  to  one  side  I  got 


1 64  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

a  shot  at  him  at  a  little  over  400  paces,  as  he  slowed  to 
a  walk,  bewildered  by  the  firing,  and  the  bullet  broke  his 
hip.  I  missed  him  two  or  three  times  as  he  plunged  off, 
and  then  by  hard  running  down  a  watercourse  got  a  shot 
at  1 80  paces  and  broke  his  shoulder,  and  broke  his  neck 
with  another  bullet  when  I  came  up. 

This  one  was  shot  while  going  out  to  the  hunting- 
ground.  While  there  Lambert  killed  four  others.  I  did 
not  fire  again  until  on  our  return,  when  I  killed  another 
buck  one  day  while  we  were  riding  with  the  wagon. 
The  day  was  gray  and  overcast.  There  were  slight  flur- 
ries of  snow,  and  the  cold  wind  chilled  us  as  it  blew  across 
the  endless  reaches  of  sad-colored  prairie.  Behind  us 
loomed  Sentinel  Butte,  and  all  around  the  rolling  surface 
was  broken  by  chains  of  hills,  by  patches  of  bad  lands, 
or  by  isolated,  saddle-shaped  mounds.  The  ranch  wagon 
jolted  over  the  uneven  sward,  and  plunged  in  and  out  of 
the  dry  beds  of  the  occasional  water  courses;  for  we  were 
following  no  road,  but  merely  striking  northward  across 
the  prairie  toward  the  P.  K.  ranch.  We  went  at  a  good 
pace,  for  the  afternoon  was  bleak,  the  wagon  was  lightly 
loaded,  and  the  Sheriff  of  the  county,  whose  deputy  I  had 
been,  and  who  was  serving  for  the  nonce  as  our  teamster 
and  cook,  kept  the  two  gaunt,  wild-looking  horses  trot- 
ting steadily.  Lambert  and  I  rode  to  one  side  on  our 
unkempt  cow-ponies,  our  rifles  slung  across  the  saddle 
bows. 

Our  stock  of  fresh  meat  was  getting  low  and  we  were 
anxious  to  shoot  something;  but  in  the  early  hours  of  the 
afternoon  we  saw  no  game.  Small  parties  of  horned  larks 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY    165 

ran  along  the  ground  ahead  of  the  wagon,  twittering 
plaintively  as  they  rose,  and  now  and  then  flocks  of  long- 
spurs  flew  hither  and  thither;  but  of  larger  life  we  saw 
nothing,  save  occasional  bands  of  range  horses.  The 
drought  had  been  severe  and  we  were  far  from  the  river, 
so  that  we  saw  no  horned  stock.  Horses  can  travel  much 
farther  to  water  than  cattle,  and,  when  the  springs  dry 
up,  they  stay  much  farther  out  on  the  prairie. 

At  last  we  did  see  a  band  of  four  antelope,  lying  in 
the  middle  of  a  wide  plain,  but  they  saw  us  before  we 
saw  them,  and  the  ground  was  so  barren  of  cover  that  it 
was  impossible  to  get  near  them.  Moreover,  they  were 
very  shy  and  ran  almost  as  soon  as  we  got  our  eyes  on 
them.  For  an  hour  or  two  after  this  we  jogged  along 
without  seeing  anything,  while  the  gray  clouds  piled  up 
in  the  west  and  the  afternoon  began  to  darken;  then,  just 
after  passing  Saddle  Butte,  we  struck  a  rough  prairie 
road,  which  we  knew  led  to  the  P.  K.  ranch — a  road  very 
faint  in  places,  while  in  others  the  wheels  had  sunk  deep 
in  the  ground  and  made  long,  parallel  ruts. 

Almost  immediately  after  striking  this  road,  on  top- 
ping a  small  rise,  we  discovered  a  young  prongbuck 
standing  off  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  to  one  side,  gazing 
at  the  wagon  with  that  absorbed  curiosity  which  in  this 
game  so  often  conquers  its  extreme  wariness  and  timidity, 
to  a  certain  extent  offsetting  the  advantage  conferred 
upon  it  by  its  marvellous  vision.  The  little  antelope  stood 
broadside  on,  gazing  at  us  out  of  its  great  bulging  eyes, 
the  sharply  contrasted  browns  and  whites  of  its  coat 
showing  plainly.  Lambert  and  I  leaped  off  our  horses 


1 66  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

immediately,  and  I  knelt  and  pulled  trigger;  but  the  car- 
tridge snapped,  and  the  little  buck,  wheeling  round,  can- 
tered off,  the  white  hairs  on  its  rump  standing  erect. 
There  was  a  strong  cross-wind,  almost  a  gale,  blowing, 
and  Lambert's  bullet  went  just  behind  him;  off  he  went 
at  a  canter,  which  changed  to  a  breakneck  gallop,  as  we 
again  fired;  and  he  went  out  of  sight  unharmed,  over  the 
crest  of  the  rising  ground  in  front.  We  ran  after  him  as 
hard  as  we  could  pelt  up  the  hill,  into  a  slight  valley, 
and  then  up  another  rise,  and  again  got  a  glimpse  of  him 
standing,  but  this  time  farther  off  than  before ;  and  again 
our  shots  went  wild. 

However,  the  antelope  changed  its  racing  gallop  to 
a  canter  while  still  in  sight,  going  slower  and  slower,  and, 
what  was  rather  curious,  it  did  not  seem  much  frightened. 
We  were  naturally  a  good  deal  chagrined  at  our  shooting 
and  wished  to  retrieve  ourselves,  if  possible;  so  we  ran 
back  to  the  wagon,  got  our  horses  and  rode  after  the  buck. 
He  had  continued  his  flight  in  a  straight  line,  gradually 
slackening  his  pace,  and  a  mile's  brisk  gallop  enabled  us 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  him,  far  ahead  and  merely  walking. 
The  wind  was  bad,  and  we  decided  to  sweep  off  and  try 
to  circle  round  ahead  of  him.  Accordingly,  we  dropped 
back,  turned  into  a  slight  hollow  to  the  right,  and  gal- 
loped hard  until  we  came  to  the  foot  of  a  series  of  low 
buttes,  when  we  turned  more  to  the  left;  and,  when  we 
judged  that  we  were  about  across  the  antelope's  line  of 
march,  leaped  from  our  horses,  threw  the  reins  over  their 
heads,  and  left  them  standing,  while  we  stole  up  the  near- 
est rise;  and,  when  close  to  the  top,  took  off  our  caps  and 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY    167 

pushed  ourselves  forward,  flat  on  our  faces  to  peep  over. 
We  had  judged  the  distance  well,  for  we  saw  the  antelope 
at  once,  now  stopping  to  graze.  Drawing  back,  we  ran 
along  some  little  distance  nearer,  then  drew  up  over  the 
same  rise.  He  was  only  about  125  yards  off,  and  this 
time  there  was  no  excuse  for  my  failing  to  get  him;  but 
fail  I  did,  and  away  the  buck  raced  again,  with  both  of 
us  shooting.  My  first  two  shots  were  misses,  but  I  kept 
correcting  my  aim  and  holding  farther  in  front  of  the 
flying  beast.  My  last  shot  was  taken  just  as  the  antelope 
reached  the  edge  of  the  broken  country,  in  which  he 
would  have  been  safe ;  and  almost  as  I  pulled  the  trigger 
I  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  him  pitch  forward  and, 
after  turning  a  complete  somerset,  lie  motionless.  I 
had  broken  his  neck.  He  had  cost  us  a  good  many  car- 
tridges, and,  though  my  last  shot  was  well  aimed,  there 
was  doubtless  considerable  chance  in  my  hitting  him, 
while  there  was  no  excuse  at  all  for  at  least  one  of  my 
previous  misses.  Nevertheless,  all  old  hunters  know  that 
there  is  no  other  kind  of  shooting  in  which  so  many  car- 
tridges are  expended  for  every  head  of  game  bagged. 

As  we  knelt  down  to  butcher  the  antelope,  the  clouds 
broke  and  the  rain  fell.  Hastily  we  took  off  the  saddle 
and  hams,  and,  packing  them  behind  us  on  our  horses, 
loped  to  the  wagon  in  the  teeth  of  the  cold  storm.  When 
we  overtook  it,  after  some  sharp  riding,  we  threw  in  the 
meat,  and  not  very  much  later,  when  the  day  was  grow- 
ing dusky,  caught  sight  of  the  group  of  low  ranch  build- 
ings toward  which  we  had  been  headed.  We  were  re- 
ceived with  warm  hospitality,  as  one  always  is  in  a  ranch 


1 68  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

country.  We  dried  our  streaming  clothes  inside  the 
warm  ranch  house  and  had  a  good  supper,  and  that  night 
we  rolled  up  in  our  blankets  and  tarpaulins,  and  slept 
soundly  in  the  lee  of  a  big  haystack.  The  ranch  house 
stood  in  the  winding  bottom  of  a  creek;  the  flanking  hills 
were  covered  with  stunted  cedar,  while  dwarf  cotton- 
wood  and  box  elder  grew  by  the  pools  in  the  half-dried 
creek  bed. 

Next  morning  we  had  risen  by  dawn.  The  storm  was 
over,  and  it  was  clear  and  cold.  Before  sunrise  we  had 
started.  We  were  only  some  thirty  miles  away  from  my 
ranch,  and  I  directed  the  Sheriff  how  to  go  there,  by  strik- 
ing east  until  he  came  to  the  main  divide,  and  then  fol- 
lowing that  down  till  he  got  past  a  certain  big  plateau, 
when  a  turn  to  the  right  down  any  of  the  coulees  would 
bring  him  into  the  river  bottom  near  the  ranch  house. 
We-  wished  ourselves  to  ride  off  to  one  side  and  try  to 
pick  up  another  antelope.  However,  the  Sheriff  took  the 
wrong  turn  after  getting  to  the  divide,  and  struck  the 
river  bottom  some  fifteen  miles  out  of  his  way,  so  that 
we  reached  the  ranch  a  good  many  hours  before  he  did. 

When  we  left  the  wagon  we  galloped  straight  across 
country,  looking  out  from  the  divide  across  the  great  roll- 
ing landscape,  every  feature  standing  clear  through  the 
frosty  air.  Hour  after  hour  we  paced  and  loped  on  and 
on  over  the  grassy  seas  in  the  glorious  morning.  Once  we 
stopped,  and  I  held  the  horses  while  Lambert  stalked  and 
shot  a  fine  prongbuck;  then  we  tied  his  head  and  hams 
to  our  saddles  and  again  pressed  forward  along  the  divide. 
We  had  hoped  to  get  lunch  at  a  spring  that  I  knew  of 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     169 

some  twelve  miles  from  my  ranch,  but  when  we  reache4 
it  we  found  it  dry  and  went  on  without  halting.  Early 
in  the  afternoon  we  came  out  on  the  broad,  tree-clad  bot- 
tom on  which  the  ranch  house  stands,  and,  threading  our 
way  along  the  cattle  trails  soon  drew  up  in  front  of  the 
gray  empty  buildings. 

Just  as  we  were  leaving  the  hunting-grounds  on  this 
trip,  after  having  killed  all  the  game  we  felt  we  had  a 
right  to  kill,  we  encountered  bands  of  Sioux  Indians  from 
the  Standing  Rock  and  Cheyenne  River  reservations  com- 
ing in  to  hunt,  and  I  at  once  felt  that  the  chances  for  much 
future  sport  in  that  particular  district  were  small.  Ind- 
ians are  not  good  shots,  but  they  hunt  in  large  numbers, 
killing  everything,  does,  fawns  and  bucks  alike,  and  they 
follow  the  wounded  animals  with  the  utmost  persever- 
ance, so  that  they  cause  much  destruction  of  game. 

Accordingly,  in  1894,  when  I  started  for  these  same 
grounds,  it  was  with  some  misgivings ;  but  I  had  time  only 
to  make  a  few  days'  hunt,  and  I  knew  of  no  other  accessi- 
ble grounds  where  prongbuck  were  plentiful.  My  fore- 
man was  with  me,  and,  as  usual,  we  took  the  ranch  wagon, 
driven  this  time  by  a  cowboy  who  had  just  come  up 
over  the  trail  with  cattle  from  Colorado.  On  reaching 
our  happy  hunting-grounds  of  the  previous  season,  I 
found  my  fears  sadly  verified;  and  one  unforeseen  cir- 
cumstance, also  told  against  me.  Not  only  had  the  Ind- 
ians made  a  great  killing  of  antelope  the  season  before, 
but  in  the  spring  one  or  two  sheep  men  had  moved  into 
the  country.  We  found  that  the  big  flocks  had  been  mov- 


I7o  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ing  from  one  spring  pool  to  another,  eating  the  pasturage 
bare,  while  the  shepherds  whom  we  met — wild-looking 
men  on  rough  horses,  each  accompanied  by  a  pair  of  fur- 
tive sheep  dogs — had  taken  every  opportunity  to  get  a 
shot  at  antelope,  so  as  to  provide  themselves  with  fresh 
meat.  Two  days  of  fruitless  hunting  in  this  sheep-ridden 
region  was  sufficient  to  show  that  the  antelope  were  too 
scarce  and  shy  to  give  us  hope  for  sport,  and  we  shifted 
quarters,  a  long  day's  journey,  to  the  head  of  another 
creek;  and  we  had  to  go  to  yet  another  before  we  found 
much  game.  As  so  often  happens  on  such  a  trip,  when 
we  started  to  have  bad  luck  we  had  plenty.  One  night 
two  of  the  three  saddle  horses  stampeded  and  went 
straight  as  the  crow  flies  back  to  the  home  range,  so  that 
we  did  not  get  them  until  on  our  return  from  the  trip. 
On  another  occasion  the  team  succeeded  in  breaking  the 
wagon  pole;  and  as  there  was  an  entire  absence  of  wood 
where  we  were  at  the  time,  we  had  to  make  a  splice  for 
it  with  the  two  tent  poles  and  the  picket  ropes.  Never- 
theless, it  was  very  enjoyable  out  on  the  great  grassy 
plains.  Although  we  had  a  tent  with  us,  I  always  slept 
in  the  open  in  my  buffalo  bag,  with  the  tarpaulin  to  pull 
over  me  if  it  rained.  On  each  night  before  going  to  sleep, 
I  lay  for  many  minutes  gazing  at  the  stars  above,  or 
watching  the  rising  of  the  red  moon,  which  was  just  at 
or  past  the  full. 

We  had  plenty  of  fresh  meat — prairie  fowl  and  young 
sage  fowl  at  first,  and  antelope  venison  afterward.  We 
camped  by  little  pools,  generally  getting  fair  water;  and 
from  the  camps  where  there  was  plenty  of  wood  we  took 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY    171 

enough  to  build  the  fires  at  those  where  there  was  none. 
The  nights  were  frosty,  and  the  days  cool  and  pleasant, 
and  from  sunrise  to  sunset  we  were  off  riding  or  walking 
among  the  low  hills  and  over  the  uplands,  so  that  we  slept 
well  and  ate  well,  and  felt  the  beat  of  hardy  life  in  our 
veins. 

Much  of  the  time  we  were  on  a  high  divide  between 
two  creek  systems,  from  which  we  could  see  the  great 
landmarks  of  all  the  regions  roundabout,  Sentinel  Butte, 
Square  Butte  and  Middle  Butte,  far  to  the  north  and 
east  of  us.  Nothing  could  be  more  lonely  and  nothing 
more  beautiful  than  the  view  at  nightfall  across  the 
prairies  to  these  huge  hill  masses,  when  the  lengthening 
shadows  had  at  last  merged  into  one  and  the  faint  after- 
glow of  the  red  sunset  filled  the  west.  The  endless  waves 
of  rolling  prairie,  sweeping,  vast  and  dim,  to  the  feet  of 
the  great  hills,  grew  purple  as  the  evening  darkened,  and 
the  buttes  loomed  into  vague,  mysterious  beauty  as  their 
sharp  outlines  softened  in  the  twilight. 

Even  when  we  got  out  of  reach  of  the  sheep  men  we 
never  found  antelope  very  plentiful,  and  they  were  shy, 
and  the  country  was  flat,  so  that  the  stalking  was  ex- 
tremely difficult;  yet  I  had  pretty  good  sport.  The  first 
animal  I  killed  was  a  doe,  shot  for  meat,  because  I  had 
twice  failed  to  get  bucks  at  which  I  emptied  my  maga- 
zine at  long  range,  and  we  were  all  feeling  hungry  for 
venison.  After  that  I  killed  nothing  but  bucks.  Of  the 
five  antelope  killed,  one  I  got  by  a  headlong  gallop  to 
cut  off  his  line  of  flight.  As  sometimes  happens  with  this 
queer,  erratic  animal,  when  the  buck  saw  that  I  was 


172 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


trying  to  cut  off  his  flight  he  simply  raced  ahead  just 
as  hard  as  he  knew  how,  and,  as  my  pony  was  not  fast, 
he  got  to  the  little  pass  for  which  he  was  headed  200  yards 
ahead  of  me.  I  then  jumped  off,  and  his  curiosity  made 
him  commit  the  fatal  mistake  of  halting  for  a  moment  to 
look  round  at  me.  He  was  standing  end  on,  and  offered 
a  very  small  mark  at  200  yards ;  but  I  made  a  good  line 
shot,  and,  though  I  held  a  trifle  too  high,  I  hit  him  in 
the  head,  and  down  he  came.  Another  buck  I  shot  from 
under  the  wagon  early  one  morning  as  he  was  passing 
just  beyond  the  picketed  horses.  I  have  several  times 
shot  antelope  which  unexpectedly  came  into  camp  in  this 
fashion.  The  other  three  I  got  after  much  manoeuvring 
and  long,  tedious  stalks. 

In  some  of  the  stalks,  after  infinite  labor,  and  perhaps 
after  crawling  on  all-fours  for  an  hour,  or  pulling  my- 
self flat  on  my  face  among  some  small  sage-brush  for  ten 
or  fifteen  minutes,  the  game  took  alarm  and  went  off. 
Too  often,  also,  when  I  finally  did  get  a  shot,  it  was  under 
such  circumstances  that  I  missed.  Sometimes  the  game 
was  too  far;  sometimes  it  had  taken  alarm  and  was 
already  in  motion;  sometimes  the  trouble  could  only  be 
ascribed  to  lack  of  straight  powder,  and  I  was  covered 
with  shame  as  with  a  garment.  Once  in  the  afternoon 
I  had  to  spend  so  much  time  waiting  for  the  antelope  to 
get  into  a  favorable  place  that,  when  I  got  up  close,  I 
found  the  light  already  so  bad  that  my  front  sight  glim- 
mered indistinctly,  and  the  bullet  went  wild.  Another 
time  I  met  with  one  of  those  misadventures  which  are 
especially  irritating.  It  was  at  midday,  and  I  made  out 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE   COUNTRY     173 

at  a  long  distance  a  band  of  antelope  lying  for  their  noon 
rest  in  a  slight  hollow.  A  careful  stalk  brought  me  up 
within  fifty  yards  of  them.  I  was  crawling  flat  on  my 
face,  for  the  crest  of  the  hillock  sloped  so  gently  that 
this  was  the  only  way  to  get  near  them.  At  last,  peering 
through  the  grass,  I  saw  the  head  of  a  doe.  In  a  mo- 
ment she  saw  me  and  jumped  to  her  feet,  and  up  stood 
the  whole  band,  including  the  buck.  I  immediately  tried 
to  draw  a  bead  on  the  latter,  and  to  my  horror  found  that, 
lying  flat  as  I  was,  and  leaning  on  my  elbows,  I  could  not 
bring  the  rifle  above  the  tall  shaking  grass,  and  was  ut- 
terly unable  to  get  a  sight.  In  another  second  away  tore 
all  the  antelope.  I  jumped  to  my  feet,  took  a  snap  shot 
at  the  buck  as  he  raced  round  a  low-cut  bank  and  missed, 
and  then  walked  drearily  home,  chewing  the  cud  of  my 
ill-luck.  Yet  again  in  more  than  one  instance,  after  mak- 
ing a  good  stalk  upon  a  band  seen  at  some  distance,  I 
found  it  contained  only  does  and  fawns,  and  would  not 
shoot  at  them. 

Three  times,  however,  the  stalk  was  successful. 
Twice  I  was  out  alone;  the  other  time  my  foreman  was 
with  me,  and  held  my  horse  while  I  manoeuvred  hither 
and  thither,  and  finally  succeeded  in  getting  into  range. 
In  both  the  first  instances  I  got  a  standing  shot,  but  on 
this  last  occasion,  when  my  foreman  was  with  me,  two  of 
the  watchful  does  which  were  in  the  band  saw  me  before 
I  could  get  a  shot  at  the  old  buck.  I  was  creeping  up 
a  low  washout,  and,  by  ducking  hastily  down  again  and 
running  back  and  up  a  side  coulee,  I  managed  to  get 
within  long  range  of  the  band  as  they  cantered  off,  not 


1 74  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

yet  thoroughly  alarmed.  The  buck  was  behind,  and  I 
held  just  ahead  of  him.  He  plunged  to  the  shot,  but 
went  off  over  the  hill-crest.  When  I  had  panted  up  to 
the  ridge  I  found  him  dead  just  beyond. 

One  of  the  antelope  I  killed  while  I  was  out  on  foot 
toward  nightfall,  a  couple  of  miles  from  the  wagon.  I 
saw  the  prongbuck  quite  half  a  mile  off,  and  though  I 
dropped  at  once  I  was  uncertain  whether  he  had  seen 
me.  He  was  in  a  little  hollow  or  valley.  A  long,  smooth- 
ly sloping  plateau  led  up  to  one  edge  of  it.  Across  this 
plateau  I  crawled,  and  when  I  thought  I  was  near  the 
run  I  ventured  slowly  to  look  up,  and  almost  immediately 
saw  vaguely  through  the  tops  of  the  long  grasses  what  I 
took  to  be  the  head  and  horns  of  the  buck,  looking  in 
my  direction.  There  was  no  use  in  going  back,  and  I 
dropped  flat  on  my  face  again  and  crawled  another  hun- 
dred yards,  until  it  was  evident  that  I  was  on  the  rise 
from  which  the  plateau  sank  into  the  shallow  valley  be- 
yond. Raising  my  head  inch  by  inch,  I  caught  sight  of 
the  object  toward  which  I  had  been  crawling,  and  after 
a  moment's  hesitation  recognized  it  as  a  dead  sunflower, 
the  stalks  and  blossoms  so  arranged  as  to  be  in  a  V  shape. 
Completely  puzzled,  I  started  to  sit  up,  when  by  sheer 
good  luck  I  caught  sight  of  the  real  prongbuck,  still  feed- 
ing, some  three  hundred  yards  off,  and  evidently  unaware 
of  my  presence.  It  was  feeding  toward  a  slight  hill  to 
my  left.  I  crept  off  until  behind  this,  and  then  walked 
up  until  I  was  in  line  with  a  big  bunch  of  weeds  on  its 
shoulder.  Crawling  on  all-fours  to  the  weeds,  I  peeped 
through  and  saw  the  prongbuck  still  slowly  feeding  my 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY     175 

way.  When  he  was  but  seventy  yards  off,  I  sat  up  and 
shot  him;  and  trudged  back  to  the  wagon,  carrying  the 
saddle  and  hams. 

In  packing  an  antelope  or  deer  behind  the  saddle,  I 
cut  slashes  through  the  sinews  of  the  legs  just  above  the 
joints;  then  I  put  the  buck  behind  the  saddle,  run  the 
picket  rope  from  the  horn  of  the  saddle,  under  the  belly 
of  the  horse,  through  the  slashes  in  the  legs  on  the  other 
side,  bring  the  end  back,  swaying  well  down  on  it,  and 
fasten  it  to  the  horn;  then  I  repeat  the  same  feat  for  the 
other  side.  Packed  in  this  way,  the  carcass  always  rides 
steady,  and  cannot  shake  loose,  no  matter  what  antics  the 
horse  may  perform. 

In  the  fall  of  1896  I  spent  a  fortnight  on  the  range 
with  the  ranch  wagon.  I  was  using  for  the  first  time  one 
of  the  new  small-calibre,  smokeless-powder  rifles,  with 
the  usual  soft-nosed  bullet.  While  travelling  to  and  fro 
across  the  range  we  usually  moved  camp  each  day,  not 
putting  up  the  tent  at  all  during  the  trip;  but  at  one 
spot  we  spent  three  nights.  It  was  in  a  creek  bottom, 
bounded  on  either  side  by  rows  of  grassy  hills,  beyond 
which  stretched  the  rolling  prairie.  The  creek  bed, 
which  at  this  season  was  of  course  dry  in  most  places, 
wound  in  S-shaped  curves,  with  here  and  there  a  pool 
and  here  and  there  a  fringe  of  stunted  wind-beaten  tim- 
ber. We  were  camped  near  a  little  grove  of  ash,  box- 
elder,  and  willow,  which  gave  us  shade  at  noonday ;  and 
there  were  two  or  three  pools  of  good  water  in  the  creek 
bed — one  so  deep  that  I  made  it  my  swimming-bath. 


176  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

The  first  day  that  I  was  able  to  make  a  hunt  I  rode 
out  with  my  foreman,  Sylvane  Ferris.  I  was  mounted 
on  Muley.  Twelve  years  before,  when  Muley  was  my 
favorite  cutting  pony  on  the  round-up,  he  never  seemed 
to  tire  or  lose  his  dash,  but  Muley  was  now  sixteen  years 
old,  and  on  ordinary  occasions  he  liked  to  go  as  soberly 
as  possible;  yet  the  good  old  pony  still  had  the  fire  latent 
in  his  blood,  and  at  the  sight  of  game — or,  indeed,  of 
cattle  or  horses — he  seemed  to  regain  for  the  time  being 
all  the  headlong  courage  of  his  vigorous  and  supple 
youth. 

On  the  morning  in  question  it  was  two  or  three  hours 
before  Sylvane  and  I  saw  any  game.  Our  two  ponies 
went  steadily  forward  at  a  single-foot  or  shack,  as  the 
cow-punchers  term  what  Easterners  call  a  "  fox  trot." 
Most  of  the  time  we  were  passing  over  immense  grassy 
flats,  where  the  mat  of  short  curled  blades  lay  brown 
and  parched  under  the  bright  sunlight.  Occasionally  we 
came  to  ranges  of  low  barren  hills,  which  sent  off  gently 
rounded  spurs  into  the  plain. 

It  was  on  one  of  these  ranges  that  we  first  saw  our 
game.  As  we  were  travelling  along  the  divide  we  spied 
eight  antelope  far  ahead  of  us.  They  saw  us  as  soon 
as  we  saw  them,  and  the  chance  of  getting  to  them  seemed 
small ;  but  it  was  worth  an  effort,  for  by  humoring  them 
when  they  started,  so  as  to  let  them  wheel  and  zigzag  be- 
fore they  became  really  frightened,  and  then,  when  they 
had  settled  into  their  run,  by  galloping  toward  them  at 
an  angle  oblique  to  their  line  of  flight,  there  was  always 
some  little  chance  of  getting  a  shot.  Sylvane  was  on  a 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY    177 

light  buckskin  horse,  and  I  left  him  on  the  ridge  crest  to 
occupy  their  attention  while  I  cantered  off  to  one  side. 
The  pronghorns  became  uneasy  as  I  galloped  away,  and 
ran  off  the  ridge  crest  in  a  line  nearly  parallel  to  mine. 
They  did  not  go  very  fast,  and  I  held  in  Muley,  who 
was  all  on  fire  at  the  sight  of  the  game.  After  crossing 
two  or  three  spurs,  the  antelope  going  at  half  speed,  they 
found  I  had  come  closer  to  them,  and  turning,  they  ran 
up  one  of  the  valleys  between  two  spurs.  Now  was  my 
chance,  and  wheeling  at  right  angles  to  my  former  course, 
I  galloped  Muley  as  hard  as  I  knew  how  up  the  valley 
nearest  and  parallel  to  where  the  antelope  had  gone.  The 
good  old  fellow  ran  like  a  quarter-horse,  and  when  we 
were  almost  at  the  main  ridge  crest  I  leaped  off,  and  ran 
ahead  with  my  rifle  at  the  ready,  crouching  down  as  I 
came  to  the  sky-line.  Usually  on  such  occasions  I  find 
that  the  antelope  have  gone  on,  and  merely  catch  a 
glimpse  of  them  half  a  mile  distant,  but  on  this  occasion 
everything  went  right.  The  band  had  just  reached  the 
ridge  crest  about  220  yards  from  me  across  the  head  of 
the  valley,  and  had  halted  for  a  moment  to  look  around. 
They  were  starting  as  I  raised  my  rifle,  but  the  trajectory 
is  very  flat  with  these  small-bore  smokeless-powder  weap- 
ons, and  taking  a  coarse  front  sight  I  fired  at  a  young 
buck  which  was  broadside  to  me.  There  was  no  smoke, 
and  as  the  band  raced  away  I  saw  him  sink  backward,  the 
ball  having  broken  his  hips. 

We  packed  him  bodily  behind  Sylvane  on  the  buck- 
skin and  continued  our  ride,  as  there  was  no  fresh  meat 
in  camp,  and  we  wished  to  bring  in  a  couple  of  bucks 


178  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

if  possible.  For  two  or  three  hours  we  saw  nothing.  The 
unshod  feet  of  the  horses  made  hardly  any  noise  on  the 
stretches  of  sun-cured  grass,  but  now  and  then  we  passed 
through  patches  of  thin  weeds,  their  dry  stalks  rattling 
curiously,  making  a  sound  like  that  of  a  rattlesnake.  At 
last,  coming  over  a  gentle  rise  of  ground,  we  spied  two 
more  prongbucks,  half  a  mile  ahead  of  us  and  to  our 
right. 

Again  there  seemed  small  chance  of  bagging  our 
quarry,  but  again  fortune  favored  us.  I  at  once  can- 
tered Muley  ahead,  not  toward  them,  but  so  as  to  pass 
them  well  on  one  side.  After  some  hesitation  they 
started,  not  straight  away,  but  at  an  angle  to  my  own 
course.  For  some  moments  I  kept  at  a  hand  gallop,  until 
they  got  thoroughly  settled  in  their  line  of  flight;  then 
I  touched  Muley,  and  he  went  as  hard  as  he  knew  how. 
Immediately  the  two  panic-stricken  and  foolish  beasts 
seemed  to  feel  that  I  was  cutting  off  their  line  of  retreat, 
and  raced  forward  at  mad  speed.  They  went  much  faster 
than  I  did,  but  I  had  the  shorter  course,  and  when  they 
crossed  me  they  were  not  fifty  yards  ahead — by  which 
time  I  had  come  nearly  a  mile.  At  the  pull  of  the  rein 
Muley  stopped  short,  like  the  trained  cow-pony  he  is; 
I  leaped  off,  and  held  well  ahead  of  the  rearmost  and 
largest  buck.  At  the  crack  of  the  little  rifle  down  he  went 
with  his  neck  broken.  In  a  minute  or  two  he  was  packed 
behind  me  on  Muley,  and  we  bent  our  steps  toward 
camp. 

During  the  remainder  of  my  trip  we  were  never  out 
of  fresh  meat,  for  I  shot  three  other  bucks — one  after  a 


HUNTING    IN    CATTLE    COUNTRY    179 

smart  chase  on  horseback,  and  the  other  two  after  careful 
stalks;  and  I  missed  two  running  shots. 

The  game  being  both  scarce  and  shy,  I  had  to  exer- 
cise much  care,  and  after  sighting  a  band  I  would  some- 
times have  to  wait  and  crawl  round  for  two  or  three  hours 
before  they  would  get  into  a  position  where  I  had  any 
chance  of  approaching.  Even  then  they  were  more  apt 
to  see  me  and  go  off  than  I  was  to  get  near  them. 

Antelope  are  the  only  game  that  can  be  hunted  as 
well  at  noonday  as  in  the  morning  or  evening,  for  their 
times  for  sleeping  and  feeding  are  irregular.  They  never 
seek  shelter  from  the  sun,  and  when  they  lie  down  for  a 
noonday  nap  they  are  apt  to  choose  a  hollow,  so  as  to  be 
out  of  the  wind;  in  consequence,  if  the  band  is  seen  at  all 
at  this  time,  it  is  easier  to  approach  them  than  when  they 
are  up  and  feeding.  They  sometimes  come  down  to  water 
in  the  middle  of  the  day,  sometimes  in  the  morning  or 
evening.  On  this  trip  I  came  across  bands  feeding  and 
resting  at  almost  every  hour  of  the  day.  They  seemed 
usually  to  rest  for  a  couple  of  hours,  then  began  feeding 
again. 

The  last  shot  I  got  was  when  I  was  out  with  Joe  Fer- 
ris, in  whose  company  I  had  killed  my  first  buffalo,  just 
thirteen  years  before,  and  not  very  far  from  this  same 
spot.  We  had  seen  two  or  three  bands  that  morning, 
and  in  each  case,  after  a  couple  of  hours  of  useless  effort, 
I  failed  to  get  near  enough.  At  last,  toward  midday, 
after  riding  and  tramping  over  a  vast  extent  of  broken 
sun-scorched  country,  we  got  within  range  of  a  small 
band  lying  down  in  a  little  cup-shaped  hollow  in  the 


i8o  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

middle  of  a  great  flat.  I  did  not  have  a  close  shot,  for 
they  were  running  about  180  yards  off.  The  buck  was 
rearmost,  and  at  him  I  aimed;  the  bullet  struck  him  in  the 
flank,  coming  out  of  the  opposite  shoulder,  and  he  fell 
in  his  next  bound.  As  we  stood  over  him,  Joe  shook 
his  head,  and  said,  "  I  guess  that  little  rifle  is  the  ace;  " 
and  I  told  him  I  guessed  so  too. 


CHAPTER   V 

A  SHOT  AT  A  MOUNTAIN  SHEEP 

IN  the  fall  of  1893  I  was  camped  on  the  Little  Mis- 
souri, some  ten  miles  below  my  ranch.  The  bottoms  were 
broad  and  grassy,  and  were  walled  in  by  curving  rows  of 
high,  steep  bluffs.  Back  of  them  lay  a  mass  of  broken 
country,  in  many  places  almost  impassable  for  horses. 
The  wagon  was  drawn  up  on  the  edge  of  the  fringe  of 
tall  cottonwoods  which  stretched  along  the  brink  of  the 
shrunken  river.  The  weather  had  grown  cold,  and  at 
night  the  frost  gathered  thickly  on  our  sleeping-bags. 
Great  flocks  of  sandhill  cranes  passed  overhead  from  time 
to  time,  the  air  resounding  with  their  strange,  musical, 
guttural  clangor. 

For  several  days  we  had  hunted  perseveringly,  but 
without  success,  through  the  broken  country.  We  had 
come  across  tracks  of  mountain  sheep,  but  not  the  animals 
themselves,  and  the  few  blacktail  which  we  had  seen  had 
seen  us  first  and  escaped  before  we  could  get  within  shot. 
The  only  thing  killed  had  been  a  young  whitetail,  which 
Lambert,  who  was  with  me,  had  knocked  over  by  a  very 
pretty  shot  as  we  were  riding  through  a  long,  heavily- 
timbered  bottom.  Four  men  in  stalwart  health  and  tak- 
ing much  out-door  exercise  have  large  appetites,  and  the 
flesh  of  the  whitetail  was  almost  gone. 

181 


1 82  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

One  evening  Lambert  and  I  hunted  nearly  to  the  head 
of  one  of  the  creeks  which  opened  close  to  our  camp,  and, 
in  turning  to  descend  what  we  thought  was  one  of  the 
side  coulees  leading  into  it,  we  contrived  to  get  over  the 
divide  into  the  coulees  of  an  entirely  different  creek  sys- 
tem, and  did  not  discover  our  error  until  it  was  too  late 
to  remedy  it.  We  struck  the  river  about  nightfall,  and 
were  not  quite  sure  where,  and  had  six  miles'  tramp  in 
the  dark  along  the  sandy  river  bed  and  through  the  dense 
timber  bottoms,  wading  the  stream  a  dozen  times  before 
we  finally  struck  camp,  tired  and  hungry,  and  able  to  ap- 
preciate to  the  full  the  stew  of  hot  venison  and  potatoes, 
and  afterward  the  comfort  of  our  buffalo  and  caribou 
hide  sleeping-bags.  The  next  morning  the  Sheriff's  re- 
mark of  "  Look  alive,  you  fellows,  if  you  want  any  break- 
fast," awoke  the  other  members  of  the  party  shortly  after 
dawn.  It  was  bitterly  cold  as  we  scrambled  out  of  our 
bedding,  and,  after  a  hasty  wash,  huddled  around  the  fire, 
where  the  venison  was  sizzling  and  the  coffee-pot  boiling, 
while  the  bread  was  kept  warm  in  the  Dutch  oven. 
About  a  third  of  a  mile  away  to  the  west  the  bluffs,  which 
rose  abruptly  from  the  river  bottom,  were  crowned  by 
a  high  plateau,  where  the  grass  was  so  good  that  over- 
night the  horses  had  been  led  up  and  picketed  on  it,  and 
the  man  who  had  led  them  up  had  stated  the  previous 
evening  that  he  had  seen  what  he  took  to  be  fresh  foot- 
prints of  a  mountain  sheep  crossing  the  surface  of  a  bluff 
fronting  our  camp.  From  the  footprints  it  appeared  that 
the  animal  had  been  there  since  the  camp  was  pitched. 
The  face  of  the  bluff  on  this  side  was  very  sheer,  the  path 


A    SHOT   AT   A   MOUNTAIN    SHEEP     183 

by  which  the  horses  scrambled  to  the  top  being  around 
a  shoulder  and  out  of  sight  of  camp. 

While  sitting  close  around  the  fire  finishing  break- 
fast, and  just  as  the  first  level  sunbeams  struck  the  top 
of  the  plateau,  we  saw  on  this  cliff  crest  something  mov- 
ing, and  at  first  supposed  it  to  be  one  of  the  horses  which 
had  broken  loose  from  its  picket  pin.  Soon  the  thing, 
whatever  it  was,  raised  its  head,  and  we  were  all  on  our 
feet  in  a  moment,  exclaiming  that  it  was  a  deer  or  a 
sheep.  It  was  feeding  in  plain  sight  of  us  only  about  a 
third  of  a  mile  distant,  and  the  horses,  as  I  afterward 
found,  were  but  a  few  rods  beyond  it  on  the  plateau.  The 
instant  I  realized  that  it  was  game  of  some  kind  I  seized 
my  rifle,  buckled  on  my  cartridge-belt,  and  slunk  off  tow- 
ard the  river  bed.  As  soon  as  I  was  under  the  protection 
of  the  line  of  cottonwoods,  I  trotted  briskly  toward  the 
cliff,  and  when  I  got  up  to  where  it  impinged  on  the 
river  I  ran  a  little  to  the  left,  and,  selecting  what  I  deemed 
to  be  a  favorable  place,  began  to  make  the  ascent.  The 
animal  was  on  a  grassy  bench,  some  eight  or  ten  feet  be- 
low the  crest,  when  I  last  saw  it;  but  it  was  evidently 
moving  hither  and  thither,  sometimes  on  this  bench  and 
sometimes  on  the  crest  itself,  cropping  the  short  grass 
and  browsing  on  the  young  shrubs.  The  cliff  was  divided 
by  several  shoulders  or  ridges,  there  being  hollows  like 
vertical  gullies  between  them,  and  up  one  of  these  I 
scrambled,  using  the  utmost  caution  not  to  dislodge  earth 
or  stones.  Finally  I  reached  the  bench  just  below  the  sky- 
line, and  then,  turning  to  the  left,  wriggled  cautiously 
along  it,  hat  in  hand.  The  cliff  was  so  steep  and  bulged 


1 84  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

so  in  the  middle,  and,  moreover,  the  shoulders  or  project- 
ing ridges  in  the  surface  spoken  of  above  were  so  pro- 
nounced, that  I  knew  it  was  out  of  the  question  for  the 
animal  to  have  seen  me,  but  I  was  afraid  it  might  have 
heard  me.  The  air  was  absolutely  still,  and  so  I  had  no 
fear  of  its  sharp  nose.  Twice  in  succession  I  peered  with 
the  utmost  caution  around  shoulders  of  the  cliff,  merely 
to  see  nothing  beyond  save  another  shoulder  some  forty 
or  fifty  yards  distant.  Then  I  crept  up  to  the  edge  and 
looked  over  the  level  plateau.  Nothing  was  in  sight  ex- 
cepting the  horses,  and  these  were  close  up  to  me,  and,  of 
course,  they  all  raised  their  heads  to  look.  I  nervously 
turned  half  round,  sure  that  if  the  animal,  whatever  it 
was,  was  in  sight,  it  would  promptly  take  the  alarm. 
However,  by  good  luck,  it  appeared  that  at  this  time  it 
was  below  the  crest  on  the  terrace  or  bench  already  men- 
tioned, and,  on  creeping  to  the  next  shoulder,  I  at  last 
saw  it — a  yearling  mountain  sheep — walking  slowly  away 
from  me,  and  evidently  utterly  unsuspicious  of  any  dan- 
ger. I  straightened  up,  bringing  my  rifle  to  my  shoulder, 
and  as  it  wheeled  I  fired,  and  the  sheep  made  two  or  three 
blind  jumps  in  my  direction.  So  close  was  I  to  the  camp, 
and  so  still  was  the  cold  morning,  that  I  distinctly  heard 
one  of  the  three  men,  who  had  remained  clustered  about 
the  fire  eagerly  watching  my  movements,  call,  "  By 
George,  he's  missed!  I  saw  the  bullet  strike  the  cliff." 
I  had  fired  behind  the  shoulders,  and  the  bullet,  going 
through,  had  buried  itself  in  the  bluff  beyond.  The 
wound  was  almost  instantaneously  fatal,  and  the  sheep, 
after  striving  in  vain  to  keep  its  balance,  fell  heels  over 


A   SHOT   AT   A   MOUNTAIN    SHEEP     185 

head  down  a  crevice,  where  it  jammed.  I  descended, 
released  the  carcass,  and  pitched  it  on  ahead  of  me,  only 
to  have  it  jam  again  near  the  foot  of  the  cliff.  Before 
I  got  it  loose  I  was  joined  by  my  three  companions,  who 
had  been  running  headlong  toward  me  through  the  brush 
ever  since  the  time  they  had  seen  the  animal  fall. 

I  never  obtained  another  sheep  under  circumstances 
which  seemed  to  me  quite  so  remarkable  as  these;  for 
sheep  are,  on  the  whole,  the  wariest  of  game.  Neverthe- 
less, with  all  game  there  is  an  immense  amount  of  chance 
in  the  chase,  and  it  is  perhaps  not  wholly  uncharacteristic 
of  a  hunter's  luck  that,  after  having  hunted  faithfully  in 
vain  and  with  much  hard  labor  for  several  days  through 
a  good  sheep  country,  we  should  at  last  have  obtained 
one  within  sight  and  earshot  of  camp.  Incidentally  I 
may  mention  that  I  have  never  tasted  better  mutton,  or 
meat  of  any  kind,  than  that  furnished  by  this  tender 
yearling. 

The  nomenclature  and  exact  specific  relationships  of 
American  sheep,  deer  and  antelope  offer  difficulties  not 
only  to  the  hunter  but  to  the  naturalist.  As  regards  the 
nomenclature,  we  share  the  trouble  encountered  by  all 
peoples  of  European  descent  who  have  gone  into  strange 
lands.  The  incomers  are  almost  invariably  men  who  are 
not  accustomed  to  scientific  precision  of  expression.  Like 
other  people,  they  do  not  like  to  invent  names  if  they 
can  by  any  possibility  make  use  of  those  already  in  ex- 
istence, and  so  in  a  large  number  of  cases  they  call  the 
new  birds  and  animals  by  names  applied  to  entirely  dif- 
ferent birds  and  animals  of  the  Old  World  to  which,  in 


1 86  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  eyes  of  the  settlers,  they  bear  some  resemblance.  In 
South  America  the  Spaniards,  for  instance,  christened 
"lion"  and  "tiger"  the  great  cats  which  are  properly 
known  as  cougar  and  jaguar.  In  South  Africa  the  Dutch 
settlers,  who  came  from  a  land  where  all  big  game  had 
long  been  exterminated,  gave  fairly  grotesque  names  to 
the  great  antelopes,  calling  them  after  the  European  elk, 
stag,  and  chamois.  The  French  did  but  little  better  in 
Canada.  Even  in  Ceylon  the  English,  although  belong- 
ing for  the  most  part  to  the  educated  classes,  did  no  better 
than  the  ordinary  pioneer  settlers,  miscalling  the  sambur 
stag  an  elk,  and  the  leopard  a  cheetah.  Our  own  pioneers 
behaved  in  the  same  way.  Hence  it  is  that  we  have  no 
distinctive  name  at  all  for  the  group  of  peculiarly  Ameri- 
can game  birds  of  which  the  bobwhite  is  the  typical  rep- 
resentative; and  that,  when  we  could  not  use  the  words 
quail,  partridge,  or  pheasant,  we  went  for  our  termi- 
nology to  the  barn-yard,  and  called  our  fine  grouse,  fool- 
hens,  sage-hens,  and  prairie-chickens.  The  bear  and  wolf 
our  people  recognized  at  once.  The  bison  they  called  a 
buffalo,  which  was  no  worse  than  the  way  in  which  in 
Europe  the  Old  World  bison  was  called  an  aurochs. 
The  American  true  elk  and  reindeer  were  rechristened 
moose  and  caribou — excellent  names,  by  the  way,  de- 
rived from  the  Indian.  The  huge  stag  was  called  an  elk. 
The  extraordinary  antelope  of  the  high  Western  peaks 
was  christened  the  white  goat;  not  unnaturally,  as  it  has 
a  most  goatlike  look.  The  prongbuck  of  the  plains,  an 
animal  standing  entirely  alone  among  ruminants,  was 
simply  called  antelope.  Even  when  we  invented  names 


A   SHOT   AT   A   MOUNTAIN    SHEEP     187 

for  ourselves,  we  applied  them  loosely.  The  ordinary 
deer  is  sometimes  known  as  the  red  deer,  sometimes  as 
the  Virginia  deer,  and  sometimes  as  the  whitetail  deer — 
the  last  being  by  far  the  best  and  most  distinctive  term. 

In  the  present  condition  of  zoological  research  it  is 
not  possible  to  state  accurately  how  many  "species."  of 
deer  and  sheep  there  are  in  North  America,  both  because 
mammalogists  have  not  at  hand  a  sufficient  amount  of 
material  in  the  way  of  large  series  of  specimens  from  dif- 
ferent localities,  and  because  they  are  not  agreed  among 
themselves  as  to  the  value  of  "  species,"  or  indeed  as  to 
exactly  what  is  denoted  by  the  term.  Of  course,  if  we 
had  a  complete  series  of  specimens  of  extinct  and  fossil 
deer  before  us,  there  would  be  a  perfect  intergradation 
among  all  the  existing  forms  through  their  long-vanished 
ancestral  types,  as  the  existing  gaps  have  been  created  by 
the  extinction  and  transformation  of  those  former  types. 
Where  the  gap  is  very  broad  and  well  marked  no  dif- 
ficulty exists  in  using  terms  which  shall  express  the  dif- 
ference. Thus  the  gap  separating  the  moose,  the  caribou, 
and  the  wapiti  from  one  another,  and  from  the  smaller 
American  deer,  is  so  wide,  and  there  is  so  complete  a  lack 
of  transitional  forms,  that  the  differences  among  them  are 
expressed  by  naturalists  by  the  use  of  different  generic 
terms.  The  gap  between  the  whitetail  and  the  different 
forms  of  blacktail,  though  much  less,  is  also  clearly 
marked.  But  when  we  come  to  consider  the  blacktail 
among  themselves,  we  find  two  very  distinct  types  which 
yet  show  a  certain  tendency  to  intergrade;  and  with  the 
whitetail  very  wide  differences  exist,  even  in  the  United 


i88  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

States,  both  individually  among  the  deer  of  certain  locali- 
ties, and  also  as  between  all  the  deer  of  one  locality  when 
compared  with  all  the  deer  of  another.  Our  present 
knowledge  of  the  various  forms  hardly  justifies  us  in  dog- 
matizing as  to  their  exact  relative  worth;  and  even  if  our 
knowledge  was  more  complete,  naturalists  are  as  yet 
wholly  at  variance  as  to  the  laws  which  should  govern 
specific  nomenclature.  However,  the  hunter,  the  mere 
field  naturalist,  and  the  lover  of  out-door  life,  are  only 
secondarily  interested  in  the  niceness  of  these  distinc- 
tions. 

In  addition  to  being  a  true  sportsman  and  not  a  game 
butcher,  in  addition  to  being  a  humane  man  as  well  as 
keen-eyed,  strong-limbed,  and  stout-hearted,  the  big 
game  hunter  should  be  a  field  naturalist.  If  possible, 
he  should  be  an  adept  with  the  camera ;  and  hunting  with 
the  camera  will  tax  his  skill  far  more  than  hunting  with 
the  rifle,  while  the  results  in  the  long  run  give  much 
greater  satisfaction.  Wherever  possible  he  should  keep 
a  note-book,  and  should  carefully  study  and  record  the 
habits  of  the  wild  creatures,  especially  when  in  some 
remote  regions  to  which  trained  scientific  observers  but 
rarely  have  access.  If  we  could  only  produce  a  hunter 
who  would  do  for  American  big  game  what  John  Bur- 
roughs has  done  for  the  smaller  wild  life  of  hedgerow 
and  orchard,  farm  and  garden  and  grove,  we  should  in- 
deed be  fortunate.  Yet  even  though  a  man  does  not 
possess  the  literary  faculty  and  the  powers  of  trained 
observation  necessary  for  such  a  task,  he  can  do  his  part 
toward  adding  to  our  information  by  keeping  careful 


A    SHOT   AT   A    MOUNTAIN    SHEEP     189 

notes  of  all  the  important  facts  which  he  comes  across. 
Such  note-books  would  show  the  changed  habits  of  game 
with  the  changed  seasons,  their  abundance  at  different 
times  and  different  places,  the  melancholy  data  of  their 
disappearance,  the  pleasanter  facts  as  to  their  change 
of  habits  which  enable  them  to  continue  to  exist  in  the 
land,  and,  in  short,  all  their  traits.  A  real  and  lasting 
service  would  thereby  be  rendered  not  only  to  naturalists, 
but  to  all  who  care  for  nature. 

Along  the  Little  Missouri  there  have  been  several 
curious  changes  in  the  fauna  within  my  own  knowledge. 
Thus  magpies  have  greatly  decreased  in  numbers.  This 
is,  I  believe,  owing  to  the  wolf  hunters,  for  magpies  often 
come  around  carcasses  and  pick  up  poisoned  baits.  I 
have  seen  as  many  as  seven  lying  dead  around  a  bait. 
They  are  much  less  plentiful  than  they  formerly  were. 
In  1894  I  was  rather  surprised  at  meeting  a  porcupine, 
usually  a  beast  of  the  timber,  at  least  twenty  miles  from 
trees.  He  was  grubbing  after  sage-brush  roots  on  the  edge 
of  a  cut  bank  by  a  half-dried  creek.  I  was  stalking  an 
antelope  at  the  time,  and  stopped  to  watch  him  for  about 
five  minutes.  He  paid  no  heed  to  me,  though  I  was 
within  three  or  four  paces  of  him.  Porcupines  are  easily 
exterminated;  and  they  have  diminished  in  numbers  in 
this  neighborhood.  Both  the  lucivee,  or  northern  lynx, 
and  the  wolverene  have  been  found  on  the  Little  Mis- 
souri, near  the  Kildeer  Mountains,  but  I  do  not  know 
of  a  specimen  of  either  that  has  been  killed  there  for 
some  years  past.  Bobcats  are  still  not  uncommon.  The 
blackfooted  ferret  was  always  rare,  and  is  rare  now.  But 


1 90 


AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 


few  beaver  are  left;  they  were  very  abundant  in  1880, 
but  were  speedily  trapped  out  when  the  Indians  vanished 
and  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  was  built.  While 
this  railroad  was  building,  the  beaver  frequently  caused 
much  trouble  by  industriously  damming  the  culverts. 

With  us  the  first  animal  to  disappear  was  the  buffalo. 
In  the  old  days,  say  from  1870  to  1880,  the  buffalo  were 
probably  the  most  abundant  of  all  animals  along  the  Lit- 
tle Missouri  in  the  region  that  I  know,  ranging,  say,  from 
Pretty  Buttes  to  the  Kildeer  Mountains.  They  were  mi- 
gratory, and  at  times  almost  all  of  them  might  leave ;  but, 
on  the  whole,  they  were  the  most  abundant  of  the  game 
animals.  In  1881  they  were  still  almost  as  numerous  as 
ever.  In  1883  all  were  killed  but  a  few  stragglers,  and 
the  last  of  these  stragglers  that  I  heard  of  as  seen  in  our 
immediate  neighborhood  was  in  1885.  The  second  game 
animal  in  point  of  abundance  was  the  blacktail.  It  did  not 
go  out  on  the  prairies,  but  in  the  broken  country  adjoining 
the  river  it  was  far  more  plentiful  than  any  other  kind  of 
game.  Blacktail  were  not  much  slaughtered  until  the 
buffalo  began  to  give  out,  say  in  1882;  but  by  1896  they 
were  not  a  twentieth — probably  not  a  fiftieth — as  plenti- 
ful as  they  had  been  in  1882.  A  few  are  still  found  in 
out-of-the-way  places,  where  the  ground  is  very  rough. 
Elk  were  plentiful  in  1880,  though  never  anything  like 
as  abundant  as  the  buffalo  and  the  blacktail.  Only  strag- 
gling parties  or  individuals  have  been  seen  since  1883. 
The  last  I  shot  near  my  ranch  was  in  1886;  but  two  or 
three  have  been  shot  since,  and  a  cow  and  calf  were  seen, 
chased  and  almost  roped  by  the  riders  on  the  round-up 


A   SHOT   AT   A   MOUNTAIN    SHEEP     191 

in  the  fall  of  1892.  Whitetail  were  never  as  numer- 
ous as  the  other  game,  but  they  held  their  own  better, 
and  a  few  can  be  shot  yet.  In  1883  probably  twenty 
blacktail  were  killed  for  every  one  whitetail;  in  1896 
the  numbers  were  about  equal.  Antelope  were  plenti- 
ful in  the  old  days,  though  not  nearly  so  much  so  as  the 
buffalo  and  blacktail.  The  hunters  did  not  molest  them 
while  the  buffalo  and  elk  lasted,  and  they  then  turned 
their  attention  to  the  blacktail.  For  some  years  after 
1883!  think  the  pronghorn  in  our  neighborhood  posi- 
tively increased  in  numbers.  In  1886  I  thought  them 
more  plentiful  than  I  had  ever  known  them  before. 
Then  they  decreased;  after  189 3  the  decrease  was  rapid. 
A  few  still  remain.  Mountain  sheep  were  never  very 
plentiful,  and  decreased  proportionately  with  less  rapid- 
ity than  any  other  game;  but  they  are  now  almost  exter- 
minated. Bears  likewise  were  never  plentiful,  and  cou- 
gars were  always  scarce. 

There  were  two  stages  of  hunting  in  this  country,  as 
in  almost  all  other  countries  similarly  situated.  In  1880 
the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  was  built  nearly  to  the 
edge  of  the  Bad  Lands,  and  the  danger  of  Indian  war 
was  totally  eliminated.  A  great  inrush  of  hunters  fol- 
lowed. In  1881,  1882  and  1883  buffalo,  elk  and  black- 
tail  were  slaughtered  in  enormous  numbers,  and  a  good 
many  whitetail  and  prongbuck  were  killed  too.  By  1884 
the  game  had  been  so  thinned  out  that  hide-hunting  and 
meat-hunting  ceased  to  pay.  A  few  professional  hunt- 
ers remained,  but  most  of  them  moved  elsewhere,  or 
were  obliged  to  go  into  other  business.  From  that  time 


1 92  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  hunting  has  chiefly  been  done  by  ranchers  and  occa- 
sional small  grangers.  In  consequence,  for  six  or  eight 
years  the  game  about  held  its  own — the  antelope,  as  I 
have  said  above,  at  one  time  increasing;  but  the  gradual 
growth  in  the  number  of  actual  settlers  then  began  to  tell, 
and  the  game  became  scarce.  Nowadays  settlers  along 
the  Little  Missouri  can  kill  an  occasional  deer  or  ante- 
lope; but  it  can  hardly  be  called  a  game  country. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  WHITETAIL  DEER 

THE  whitetail  deer  is  now,  as  it  always  has  been,  the 
most  plentiful  and  most  widely  distributed  of  American 
big  game.  It  holds  its  own  in  the  land  better  than  any 
other  species,  because  it  is  by  choice  a  dweller  in  the 
thick  forests  and  swamps,  the  places  around  which  the 
tide  of  civilization  flows,  leaving  them  as  islets  of  refuge 
for  the  wild  creatures  which  formerly  haunted  all  the 
country.  The  range  of  the  whitetail  is  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific,  and  from  the  Canadian  to  the  Mexican 
borders,  and  somewhat  to  the  north  and  far  to  the  south 
of  these  limits.  The  animal  shows  a  wide  variability, 
both  individually  and  locally,  within  these  confines ;  from 
the  hunter's  standpoint  it  is  not  necessary  to  try  to  deter- 
mine exactly  the  weight  that  attaches  to  these  local  varia- 
tions. 

There  is  also  a  very  considerable  variation  in  habits. 
As  compared  with  the  mule-deer,  the  whitetail  is  not 
a  lover  of  the  mountains.  As  compared  with  the  prong- 
buck,  it  is  not  a  lover  of  the  treeless  plains.  Yet  in  the 
Alleghanies  and  the  Adirondacks,  at  certain  seasons  espe- 
cially, and  in  some  places  at  all  seasons,  it  dwells  high 
among  the  densely  wooded  mountains,  wandering  over 
their  crests  and  sheer  sides,  and  through  the  deep  ravines; 

193 


i94  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

while  in  the  old  days  there  were  parts  of  Texas  and  the 
Indian  Territory  where  it  was  found  in  great  herds  far 
out  on  the  prairie.  Moreover,  the  peculiar  nature  of  its 
chosen  habitat,  while  generally  enabling  it  to  resist  the 
onslaught  of  man  longer  than  any  of  its  fellows,  some- 
times exposes  it  to  speedy  extermination.  To  the  west- 
ward of  the  rich  bottom-lands  and  low  prairies  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  proper,  when  the  dry  plains  country 
is  reached,  the  natural  conditions  are  much  less  favorable 
for  whitetail  than  for  other  big  game.  The  black  bear, 
which  in  the  East  has  almost  precisely  the  same  habitat 
as  the  whitetail,  disappears  entirely  on  the  great  plains, 
and  reappears  in  the  Rockies  in  regions  which  the  white- 
tail  does  not  reach.  All  over  the  great  plains,  into  the 
foothills  of  the  Rockies,  the  whitetail  is  found,  but  only 
in  the  thick  timber  of  the  river  bottoms.  Throughout 
the  regions  of  the  Upper  Missouri  and  Upper  Platte,  the 
Big  Horn,  Powder,  Yellowstone,  and  Cheyenne,  over  all 
of  which  I  have  hunted,  the  whitetail  lives  among  the 
cottonwood  groves  and  dense  brush  growth  that  fringe 
the  river  beds  and  here  and  there  extend  some  distance 
up  the  mouths  of  the  large  creeks.  In  these  places  the 
whitetail  and  the  mule-deer  may  exist  in  close  proximity; 
but  normally  neither  invades  the  haunts  of  the  other. 

Along  the  ordinary  plains  river,  such  as  the  Little 
Missouri,  where  I  ranched  for  many  years,  there  are 
three  entirely  different  types  of  country  through  which 
a  man  passes  as  he  travels  away  from  the  bed  of  the  river. 
There  is  first  the  alluvial  river  bottom  covered  with 
cottonwood  and  box-elder,  together  with  thick  brush. 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER  195 

These  bottoms  may  be  a  mile  or  two  across,  or  they  may 
shrink  to  but  a  few  score  yards.  After  the  extermination 
of  the  wapiti,  which  roamed  everywhere,  the  only  big 
game  animal  found  in  them  was  the  whitetail  deer. 
Beyond  this  level  alluvial  bottom  the  ground  changes 
abruptly  to  bare,  rugged  hills  or  fantastically  carved  and 
shaped  Bad  Lands  rising  on  either  side  of  the  river,  the 
ravines,  coulees,  creeks,  and  canyons  twisting  through 
them  in  every  direction.  Here  there  are  patches  of  ash, 
cedar,  pine,  and  occasionally  other  trees,  but  the  country 
is  very  rugged,  and  the  cover  very  scanty.  This  is  the 
home  of  the  mule-deer,  and,  in  the  roughest  and  wildest 
parts,  of  the  bighorn.  The  absolutely  clear  and  sharply 
defined  line  of  demarkation  between  this  rough,  hilly 
country,  flanking  the  river,  and  the  alluvial  river  bottom, 
serves  as  an  equally  clearly  marked  line  of  demarkation 
between  the  ranges  of  the  whitetail  and  the  mule-deer. 
This  belt  of  broken  country  may  be  only  a  few  hundred 
yards  in  width;  or  it  may  extend  for  a  score  of  miles 
before  it  changes  into  the  open  prairies,  the  high  plains 
proper.  As  soon  as  these  are  reached,  the  prongbuck's 
domain  begins. 

As  the  plains  country  is  passed,  and  the  vast  stretches 
of  mountainous  region  entered,  the  river  bottoms  become 
narrower,  and  the  plains  on  which  the  prongbuck  is  found 
become  of  very  limited  extent,  shrinking  to  high  valleys 
and  plateaus,  while  the  mass  of  rugged  foothills  and 
mountains  add  immensely  to  the  area  of  the  mule-deer's 
habitat. 

Given  equal  areas  of  country,  of  the  three  different 


196  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

types  alluded  to  above,  that  in  which  the  mule-deer  is 
found  offers  the  greatest  chance  of  success  to  the  rifle- 
bearing  hunter,  because  there  is  enough  cover  to  shield 
him  and  not  enough  to  allow  his  quarry  to  escape  by 
stealth  and  hiding.  On  the  other  hand,  the  thick  river 
bottoms  offer  him  the  greatest  difficulty.  In  consequence, 
where  the  areas  of  distribution  of  the  different  game  ani- 
mals are  about  equal,  the  mule-deer  disappears  first  be- 
fore the  hunter,  the  prongbuck  next,  while  the  whitetail 
holds  out  the  best  of  all.  I  saw  this  frequently  on  the  Yel- 
lowstone, the  Powder,  and  the  Little  Missouri.  When 
the  ranchmen  first  came  into  this  country  the  mule-deer 
swarmed,  and  yielded  a  far  more  certain  harvest  to  the 
hunter  than  did  either  the  prongbuck  or  the  whitetail. 
They  were  the  first  to  be  thinned  out,  the  prongbuck  last- 
ing much  better.  The  cowboys  and  small  ranchmen, 
most  of  whom  did  not  at  the  time  have  hounds,  then 
followed  the  prongbuck;  and  this,  in  its  turn,  was  killed 
out  before  the  whitetail.  But  in  other  places  a  slight 
change  in  the  conditions  completely  reversed  the  order 
of  destruction.  In  parts  of  Wyoming  and  Montana  the 
mountainous  region  where  the  mule-deer  dwelt  was  of 
such  vast  extent,  and  the  few  river  bottoms  on  which  the 
whitetail  were  found  were  so  easily  hunted,  that  the 
whitetail  was  completely  exterminated  throughout  large 
districts  where  the  mule-deer  continued  to  abound. 
Moreover,  in  these  regions  the  table-lands  and  plains 
upon  which  the  prongbuck  was  found  were  limited  in 
extent,  and  although  the  prongbuck  outlasted  the  white- 
tail,  it  vanished  long  before  the  herds  of  the  mule-deer 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER  197 

had  been  destroyed  from  among  the  neighboring  moun- 
tains. 

The  whitetail  was  originally  far  less  common  in  the 
forests  of  northern  New  England  than  was  the  moose, 
for  in  the  deep  snows  the  moose  had  a  much  better  chance 
to  escape  from  its  brute  foes  and  to  withstand  cold  and 
starvation.  But  when  man  appeared  upon  the  scene  he 
followed  the  moose  so  much  more  eagerly  than  he  fol- 
lowed the  deer  that  the  conditions  were  reversed  and  the 
moose  was  killed  out.  The  moose  thus  vanished  entirely 
from  the  Adirondacks,  and  almost  entirely  from  Maine; 
but  the  excellent  game  laws  of  the  latter  State,  and  the 
honesty  and  efficiency  with  which  they  have  been  exe- 
cuted during  the  last  twenty  years,  have  resulted  in  an 
increase  of  moose  during  that  time.  During  the  same 
period  the  whitetail  deer  has  increased  to  an  even  greater 
extent.  It  is  doubtless  now  more  plentiful  in  New  York 
and  New  England  than  it  was  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago.  Stragglers  are  found  in  Connecticut,  and,  what  is 
still  more  extraordinary,  even  occasionally  come  into 
wild  parts  of  densely  populated  little  Rhode  Island — my 
authority  for  the  last  statement  being  Mr.  C.  Grant 
La  Farge.  Of  all  our  wild  game,  the  whitetail  responds 
most  quickly  to  the  efforts  for  its  protection,  and  except 
the  wapiti,  it  thrives  best  in  semi-domestication ;  in  con- 
sequence, it  has  proved  easy  to  preserve  it,  even  in  such 
places  as  Cape  Cod  in  Massachusetts  and  Long  Island 
in  New  York;  while  it  has  increased  greatly  in  Vermont, 
New  Hampshire,  and  Maine,  and  has  more  than  held 
its  own  in  the  Adirondacks.  Mr.  James  R.  Sheffield, 


198  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

of  New  York  City,  in  the  summer  of  1899,  spent  several 
weeks  on  a  fishing  trip  through  northern  Maine.  He 
kept  count  of  the  moose  and  deer  he  saw,  and  came 
across  no  less  than  thirty-five  of  the  former  and  over  five 
hundred  and  sixty  of  the  latter.  In  the  most  lonely  parts 
of  the  forest  deer  were  found  by  the  score,  feeding  in 
broad  daylight  on  the  edges  of  the  ponds.  Deer  are  still 
plentiful  in  many  parts  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains, 
from  Pennsylvania  southward,  and  also  in  the  swamps 
and  canebrakes  of  the  South  Atlantic  and  Gulf  States. 
Where  the  differences  in  habitat  and  climate  are  so 
great  there  are  many  changes  of  habits,  and  some  of  them 
of  a  noteworthy  kind.  Mr.  John  A.  Mcllhenny,  of 
Avery's  Island,  Louisiana,  formerly  a  lieutenant  in  my 
regiment,  lives  in  what  is  still  a  fine  game  country.  His 
plantation  is  in  the  delta  of  the  Mississippi,  among  the 
vast  marshes,  north  of  which  lie  the  wooded  swamps. 
Both  the  marshes  and  the  swamps  were  formerly  literally 
thronged  with  whitetail  deer,  and  the  animals  are  still 
plentiful  in  them.  Mr.  Mcllhenny  has  done  much  deer- 
hunting,  always  using  hounds.  He  informs  me  that  the 
breeding  times  are  unexpectedly  different  from  those  of 
the  northern  deer.  In  the  North,  in  different  localities, 
the  rut  takes  place  in  October  or  November,  and  the 
fawns  are  dropped  in  May  or  June.  In  the  Louisiana 
marshes  around  Avery's  Island  the  rut  begins  early  in 
July  and  the  fawns  are  dropped  in  February.  In  the 
swamps  immediately  north  of  these  marshes  the  dates  are 
fully  a  month  later.  The  marshes  are  covered  with  tall 
reeds  and  grass  and  broken  by  bayous,  while  there  are 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER  199 

scattered  over  them  what  are  called  "  islands  "  of  firmer 
ground  overgrown  with  timber.  In  this  locality  the  deer 
live  in  the  same  neighborhood  all  the  year  round,  just  as, 
for  instance,  they  do  on  Long  Island.  So  on  the  Little 
Missouri,  in  the  neighborhood  of  my  ranch,  they  lived  in 
exactly  the  same  localities  throughout  the  entire  year. 
Occasionally  they  would  shift  from  one  river  bottom  to 
another,  or  go  a  few  miles  up  or  down  stream  because  of 
scarcity  of  food.  But  there  was  no  general  shifting. 

On  the  Little  Missouri,  in  one  place  where  they  were 
not  molested,  I  knew  a  particular  doe  and  fawn  with 
whose  habits  I  became  quite  intimately  acquainted. 
When  the  moon  was  full  they  fed  chiefly  by  night,  and 
spent  most  of  the  day  lying  in  the  thick  brush.  When 
there  was  little  or  no  moon  they  would  begin  to  feed  early 
in  the  morning,  then  take  a  siesta,  and  then — what  struck 
me  as  most  curious  of  all — would  go  to  a  little  willow- 
bordered  pool  about  noon  to  drink,  feeding  for  some  time 
both  before  and  after  drinking.  After  another  siesta  they 
would  come  out  late  in  the  afternoon  and  feed  until  dark. 

In  the  Adirondacks  the  deer  often  completely  alter 
their  habits  at  different  seasons.  Soon  after  the  fawns 
are  born  they  come  down  to  the  water's  edge,  preferring 
the  neighborhood  of  the  lakes,  but  also  haunting  the 
stream  banks.  The  next  three  months,  during  the  hot 
weather,  they  keep  very  close  to  the  water,  and  get  a  large 
proportion  of  their  food  by  wading  in  after  the  lilies  and 
other  aquatic  plants.  Where  they  are  much  hunted,  they 
only  come  to  the  water's  edge  after  dark,  but  in  regions 
where  they  are  little  disturbed  they  are  quite  as  often 


200  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

diurnal  in  their  habits.  I  have  seen  dozens  feeding  in 
the  neighborhood  of  a  lake,  some  of  them  two  or  three 
hundred  yards  out  in  shallow  places,  up  to  their  bellies; 
and  this  after  sunrise,  or  two  or  three  hours  before  sunset. 
Before  September  the  deer  cease  coming  to  the  water, 
and  go  back  among  the  dense  forests  and  on  the  moun- 
tains. There  is  no  genuine  migration,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  mule-deer,  from  one  big  tract  to  another,  and  no  en- 
tire desertion  of  any  locality.  But  the  food  supply  which 
drew  the  animals  to  the  water's  edge  during  the  summer 
months  shows  signs  of  exhaustion  toward  fall;  the  deli- 
cate water-plants  have  vanished,  the  marsh-grass  is  dying, 
and  the  lilies  are  less  succulent.  An  occasional  deer  still 
wanders  along  the  shores  or  out  into  the  lake,  but  most 
of  them  begin  to  roam  the  woods,  eating  the  berries  and 
the  leaves  and  twig  ends  of  the  deciduous  trees,  and  even 
of  some  of  the  conifers — although  a  whitetail  is  fond  of 
grazing,  especially  upon  the  tips  of  the  grass.  I  have 
seen  moose  feeding  on  the  tough  old  lily  stems  and  wad- 
ing after  them  when  the  ice  had  skimmed  the  edges  of 
the  pool.  But  the  whitetail  has  usually  gone  back  into 
the  woods  long  before  freezing-time. 

From  Long  Island  south  there  is  not  enough  snow  to 
make  the  deer  alter  their  habits  in  the  winter.  As  soon 
as  the  rut  is  over,  which  in  different  localities  may  be 
from  October  to  December,  whitetail  are  apt  to  band  to- 
gether— more  apt  than  at  any  other  season,  although  even 
then  they  are  often  found  singly  or  in  small  parties. 
While  nursing,  the  does  have  been  thin,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  rut  the  bucks  are  gaunt,  with  their  necks  swollen 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER 


2OI 


and  distended.  From  that  time  on  bucks  and  does  alike 
put  on  flesh  very  rapidly  in  preparation  for  the  winter. 
Where  there  is  no  snow,  or  not  enough  to  interfere  with 
their  travelling,  they  continue  to  roam  anywhere  through 
the  woods  and  across  the  natural  pastures  and  meadows, 
eating  twigs,  buds,  nuts,  and  the  natural  hay  which  is 
cured  on  the  stalk. 

In  the  Northern  woods  they  form  yards  during  the 
winter.  These  yards  are  generally  found  in  a  hardwood 
growth  which  offers  a  supply  of  winter  food,  and  consist 
simply  of  a  tangle  of  winding  trails  beaten  out  through 
the  snow  by  the  incessant  passing  and  repassing  of  the 
animal.  The  yard  merely  enables  the  deer  to  move  along 
the  various  paths  in  order  to  obtain  food.  If  there  are 
many  deer  together,  the  yards  may  connect  by  interlacing 
paths,  so  that  a  deer  can  run  a  considerable  distance 
through  them.  Often,  however,  each  deer  will  yard  by 
itself,  as  food  is  the  prime  consideration,  and  a  given 
locality  may  only  have  enough  to  support  a  single  animal. 
When  the  snows  grow  deep  the  deer  is  wholly  unable  to 
move,  once  the  yard  is  left,  and  hence  it  is  absolutely  at 
the  mercy  of  a  man  on  snow-shoes,  or  of  a  cougar  or  a 
wolf,  if  found  at  such  times.  The  man  on  snow-shoes 
can  move  very  comfortably;  and  the  cougar  and  the  wolf, 
although  hampered  by  the  snow,  are  not  rendered  help- 
less like  the  deer.  I  have  myself  scared  a  deer  out  of  a 
yard,  and  seen  it  flounder  helplessly  in  a  great  drift  be- 
fore it  had  gone  thirty  rods.  When  I  came  up  close  it 
ploughed  its  way  a  very  short  distance  through  the  drifts, 
making  tremendous  leaps.  But  as  the  snow  was  over  six 


202  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

feet  deep,  so  that  the  deer  sank  below  the  level  of  the  sur- 
face at  each  jump,  and  yet  could  not  get  its  feet  on  the 
solid  ground,  it  became  so  exhausted  that  it  fell  over  on 
its  side  and  bleated  in  terror  as  I  came  up.  After  looking 
at  it  I  passed  on.  Hide-hunters  and  frontier  settlers  some- 
times go  out  after  the  deer  on  snow-shoes  when  there  is 
a  crust,  and  hence  this  method  of  killing  is  called  crust- 
ing. It  is  simple  butchery,  for  the  deer  cannot,  as  the 
moose  does,  cause  its  pursuer  a  chase  which  may  last 
days.  No  self-respecting  man  would  follow  this  method 
of  hunting  save  from  the  necessity  of  having  meat. 

In  very  wild  localities  deer  sometimes  yard  on  the  ice 
along  the  edges  of  lakes,  eating  off  all  the  twigs  and 
branches,  whether  of  hardwood  trees  or  of  conifers, 
which  they  can  reach. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  rut  the  does  flee  from  the 
bucks,  which  follow  them  by  scent  at  full  speed.  The 
whitetail  buck  rarely  tries  to  form  a  herd  of  does,  though 
he  will  sometimes  gather  two  or  three.  The  mere  fact 
that  his  tactics  necessitate  a  long  and  arduous  chase  after 
each  individual  doe  prevents  his  organizing  herds  as  the 
wapiti  bull  does.  Sometimes  two  or  three  bucks  will  be 
found  strung  out  one  behind  the  other,  following  the 
same  doe.  The  bucks  wage  desperate  battle  among  them- 
selves during  this  season,  coming  together  with  a  clash, 
and  then  pushing  and  straining  for  an  hour  or  two  at  a 
time,  with  their  mouths  open,  until  the  weakest  gives  way. 
As  soon  as  one  abandons  the  fight  he  flees  with  all  possible 
speed,  and  usually  escapes  unscathed.  While  head  to 
head  there  is  no  opportunity  for  a  disabling  thrust,  but 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER  203 

if,  in  the  effort  to  retreat,  the  beaten  buck  gets  caught, 
he  may  be  killed.  Owing  to  the  character  of  the  antlers, 
whitetail  bucks  are  peculiarly  apt  to  get  them  interlocked 
in  such  a  fight,  and  if  the  efforts  of  the  two  beasts  fail  to 
disentangle  them,  both  ultimately  perish  by  starvation. 
I  have  several  times  come  across  a  pair  of  skulls  with 
interlocked  antlers.  The  same  thing  occurs,  though  far 
less-frequently,  to  the  mule-deer  and  even  the  wapiti. 

The  whitetail  is  the  most  beautiful  and  graceful  of 
all  our  game  animals  when  in  motion.  I  have  never  been 
able  to  agree  with  Judge  Caton  that  the  mule-deer  is 
clumsy  and  awkward  in  his  gait.  I  suppose  all  such  terms 
are  relative.  Compared  to  the  moose  or  caribou  the 
mule-deer  is  light  and  quick  in  his  movements,  and  to 
me  there  is  something  very  attractive  in  the  poise  and 
power  with  which  one  of  the  great  bucks  bounds  off,  all 
four  legs  striking  the  earth  together  and  shooting  the 
body  upward  and  forward  as  if  they  were  steel  springs. 
But  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  infinitely  superior 
grace  and  beauty  of  the  whitetail  when  he  either  trots 
or  runs.  The  mule-deer  and  blacktail  bound,  as  already 
described.  The  prongbuck  gallops  with  an  even  gait, 
and  so  does  the  bighorn,  when  it  happens  to  be  caught 
on  a  flat;  but  the  whitetail  moves  with  an  indescribable 
spring  and  buoyancy.  If  surprised  close  up,  and  much 
terrified,  it  simply  runs  away  as  hard  as  it  can,  at  a  gait 
not  materially  different  from  that  of  any  other  game 
animal  under  like  circumstances,  while  its  head  is  thrust 
forward  and  held  down,  and  the  tail  is  raised  perpendic- 
ularly. But  normally  its  mode  of  progression,  whether 


204  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

it  trots  or  gallops,  is  entirely  unique.  In  trotting,  the  head 
and  tail  are  both  held  erect,  and  the  animal  throws  out 
its  legs  with  a  singularly  proud  and  free  motion,  bringing 
the  feet  well  up,  while  at  every  step  there  is  an  inde- 
scribable spring.  In  the  canter  or  gallop  the  head  and 
tail  are  also  held  erect,  the  flashing  white  brush  being 
very  conspicuous.  Three  or  four  low,  long,  marvellously 
springy  bounds  are  taken,  and  then  a  great  leap  is  made 
high  in  the  air,  which  is  succeeded  by  three  or  four  low 
bounds,  and  then  by  another  high  leap.  A  whitetail 
going  through  the  brush  in  this  manner  is  a  singularly 
beautiful  sight.  It  has  been  my  experience  that  they  are 
not  usually  very  much  frightened  by  an  ordinary  slow 
trackhound,  and  I  have  seen  a  buck  play  along  in  front 
of  one,  alternately  trotting  and  cantering,  head  and  flag 
up,  and  evidently  feeling  very  little  fear. 

To  my  mind  the  chase  of  the  whitetail,  as  it  must 
usually  be  carried  on,  offers  less  attraction  than  the  chase 
of  any  other  kind  of  our  large  game.  But  this  is  a 
mere  matter  of  taste,  and  such  men  as  Judge  Caton  and 
Mr.  George  Bird  Grinnell  have  placed  it  above  all  others 
as  a  game  animal.  Personally  I  feel  that  the  chase  of  any 
animal  has  in  it  two  chief  elements  of  attraction.  The 
first  is  the  chance  given  to  be  in  the  wilderness;  to  see 
the  sights  and  hear  the  sounds  of  wild  nature.  The  sec- 
ond is  the  demand  made  by  the  particular  kind  of  chase 
upon  the  qualities  of  manliness  and  hardihood.  As  re- 
gards the  first,  some  kinds  of  game,  of  course,  lead  the 
hunter  into  particularly  remote  and  wild  localities;  and 
the  farther  one  gets  into  the  wilderness,  the  greater  is  the 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER 


205 


attraction  of  its  lonely  freedom.  Yet  to  camp  out  at  all 
implies  some  measure  of  this  delight.  The  keen,  fresh 
air,  the  breath  of  the  pine  forests,  the  glassy  stillness  of 
the  lake  at  sunset,  the  glory  of  sunrise  among  the  moun- 
tains, the  shimmer  of  the  endless  prairies,  the  ceaseless 
rustle  of  the  cottonwood  leaves  where  the  wagon  is  drawn 
up  on  the  low  bluff  of  the  shrunken  river — all  these  ap- 
peal intensely  to  any  man,  no  matter  what  may  be  the 
game  he  happens  to  be  following.  But  there  is  a  wide 
variation,  and  indeed  contrast,  in  the  qualities  called  for 
in  the  chase  itself,  according  as  one  quarry  or  another 
is  sought. 

The  qualities  that  make  a  good  soldier  are,  in  large 
part,  the  qualities  that  make  a  good  hunter.  Most  impor- 
tant of  all  is  the  ability  to  shift  for  one's  self,  the  mixture 
of  hardihood  and  resourcefulness  which  enables  a  man 
to  tramp  all  day  in  the  right  direction,  and,  when  night 
comes,  to  make  the  best  of  whatever  opportunities  for 
shelter  and  warmth  may  be  at  hand.  Skill  in  the  use 
of  the  rifle  is  another  trait;  quickness  in  seeing  game, 
another;  ability  to  take  advantage  of  cover,  yet  another; 
while  patience,  endurance,  keenness  of  observation,  res- 
olution, good  nerves,  and  instant  readiness  in  an  emer- 
gency, are  all  indispensable  to  a  really  good  hunter. 

If  a  man  lives  on  a  ranch,  or  is  passing  some  weeks 
in  a  lodge  in  a  game  country,  and  starts  out  for  two  or 
three  days,  he  will  often  do  well  to  carry  nothing  what- 
ever but  a  blanket,  a  frying-pan,  some  salt  pork,  and  some 
hardtack.  If  the  hunting-ground  is  such  that  he  can  use 
a  wagon  or  a  canoe,  and  the  trip  is  not  to  be  too  long, 


206  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

he  can  carry  about  anything  he  chooses,  including  a  tent, 
any  amount  of  bedding,  and  if  it  is  very  cold,  a  small, 
portable  stove,  not  to  speak  of  elaborate  cooking  ap- 
paratus. If  he  goes  with  a  pack-train,  he  will  also  be 
able  to  carry  a  good  deal ;  but  in  such  a  case  he  must  rely 
on  the  judgment  of  the  trained  packers,  unless  he  is  him- 
self an  expert  in  the  diamond  hitch.  If  it  becomes  nec- 
essary to  go  on  foot  for  any  length  of  time,  he  must  be 
prepared  to  do  genuine  roughing,  and  must  get  along 
with  the  minimum  of  absolute  necessities. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  hunter 
worthy  of  the  name  should  be  prepared  to  shift  for  him- 
self in  emergencies.  A  ranchman,  or  any  other  man 
whose  business  takes  him  much  in  the  mountains  and  out 
on  the  great  plains  or  among  the  forests,  ought  to  be 
able  to  get  along  entirely  on  his  own  account.  But  this 
cannot  usually  be  done  by  those  whose  existence  is  habit- 
ually more  artificial.  When  a  man  who  normally  lives 
a  rather  over-civilized  life,  an  over-luxurious  life — espe- 
cially in  the  great  cities — gets  off  for  a  few  weeks'  hunt- 
ing, he  cannot  expect  to  accomplish  much  in  the  way  of 
getting  game  without  calling  upon  the  services  of  a 
trained  guide,  woodsman,  plainsman,  or  mountain  man, 
whose  life-work  it  has  been  to  make  himself  an  adept 
in  all  the  craft  of  the  wilderness.  Until  a  man  unused  to 
wilderness  life,  even  though  a  good  sportsman,  has  act- 
ually tried  it,  he  has  no  idea  of  the  difficulties  and  hard- 
ships of  shifting  absolutely  for  himself,  even  for  only  two 
or  three  days.  Not  only  will  the  local  guide  have  the 
necessary  knowledge  as  to  precisely  which  one  of  two 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER  207 

seemingly  similar  places  is  most  apt  to  contain  game; 
not  only  will  he  possess  the  skill  in  packing  horses,  or 
handling  a  canoe  in  rough  water,  or  finding  his  way 
through  the  wilderness,  which  the  amateur  must  lack; 
but  even  the  things  which  the  amateur  does,  the  profes- 
sional will  do  so  much  more  easily  and  rapidly,  as  in  the 
one  case  to  leave,  and  in  the  other  case  not  to  leave, 
ample  time  for  the  hunting  proper.  Therefore  the  or- 
dinary amateur  sportsman,  especially  if  he  lives  in  a 
city,  must  count  upon  the  services  of  trained  men,  possi- 
bly to  help  him  in  hunting,  certainly  to  help  him  in  trav- 
elling, cooking,  pitching  camp,  and  the  like;  and  this 
he  must  do,  if  he  expects  to  get  good  sport,  no  matter 
how  hardy  he  may  be,  and  no  matter  how  just  may  be 
the  pride  he  ought  to  take  in  his  own  craft,  skill,  and 
capacity  to  undergo  fatigue  and  exposure.  But  while 
normally  he  must  take  advantage  of  the  powers  of  others, 
he  should  certainly  make  a  point  of  being  able  to  shift 
for  himself  whenever  the  need  arises;  and  he  can  only 
be  sure  of  possessing  this  capacity  by  occasionally  exer- 
cising it.  It  ought  to  be  unnecessary  to  point  out  that 
the  wilderness  is  not  a  place  for  those  who  are  dependent 
upon  luxuries,  and  above  all  for  those  who  make  a  camp- 
ing trip  an  excuse  for  debauchery.  Neither  the  man  who 
wants  to  take  a  French  cook  and  champagne  on  a  hunting 
trip,  nor  his  equally  objectionable  though  less  wealthy 
brother  who  is  chiefly  concerned  with  filling  and  empty- 
ing a  large  whiskey  jug,  has  any  place  whatever  in  the 
real  life  of  the  wilderness. 

The  chase  of  an  animal  should  rank  according  as  it 


208  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

calls  for  the  exercise  in  a  high  degree  of  a  large  num- 
ber of  these  qualities.  The  grizzly  is  almost  our  only 
dangerous  game,  and  under  certain  conditions  shooting 
the  grizzly  calls  for  considerable  courage  on  the  part  of 
the  hunter.  Disregarding  these  comparatively  rare  occa- 
sions, the  chase  of  mountain  game,  especially  the  big- 
horn, demands  more  hardihood,  power  of  endurance,  and 
moral  and  physical  soundness  than  any  other  kind  of 
sport,  and  so  must  come  first.  The  wapiti  and  mule- 
deer  rank  next,  for  they  too  must  be  killed  by  stalking 
as  a  result  of  long  tramps  over  very  rough  ground.  To 
kill  a  moose  by  still  hunting  is  a  feat  requiring  a  high 
degree  of  skill,  and  entailing  severe  fatigue.  When  game 
is  followed  on  horseback,  it  means  that  the  successful 
hunter  must  ride  well  and  boldly. 

The  whitetail  is  occasionally  found  where  it  yields 
a  very  high  quality  of  sport.  But  normally  it  lives  in 
regions  where  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  kill  it  legiti- 
mately, as  the  wapiti  and  mule-deer  are  killed,  and  yet 
comparatively  easy  to  kill  it  under  circumstances  which 
make  no  demand  for  any  particular  prowess  on  the  part 
of  the  hunter.  It  is  far  more  difficult  to  still  hunt  suc- 
cessfully in  the  dense  brushy  timber  frequented  by  the 
whitetail  than  in  the  open  glades,  the  mountains,  and 
the  rocky  hills,  through  which  the  wapiti  and  mule-deer 
wander.  The  difficulty  arises,  however,  because  the  chief 
requirement  is  stealth,  noiselessness.  The  man  who  goes 
out  into  the  hills  for  a  mule-deer  must  walk  hard  and 
far,  must  be  able  to  bear  fatigue,  and  possibly  thirst  and 
hunger,  must  have  keen  eyes,  and  be  a  good  shot.  He 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER  209 

does  not  need  to  display  the  extraordinary  power  of 
stealthy  advance  which  is  necessary  to  the  man  who  would 
creep  up  to  and  kill  a  whitetail  in  thick  timber.  Now, 
the  qualities  of  hardihood  and  endurance  are  better  than 
the  quality  of  stealth,  and  though  all  three  are  necessary 
in  both  kinds  of  chase,  yet  it  is  the  chase  of  the  mule- 
deer  which  most  develops  the  former,  and  the  chase  of 
the  whitetail  which  most  develops  the  latter.  When  the 
woods  are  bare  and  there  is  some  snow  on  the  ground, 
however,  still  hunting  the  whitetail  becomes  not  only 
possible,  but  a  singularly  manly  and  attractive  kind  of 
sport.  Where  the  whitetail  can  be  followed  with  horse 
and  hound,  the  sport  is  also  of  a  very  high  order.  To 
be  able  to  ride  through  woods  and  over  rough  country 
at  full  speed,  rifle  or  shotgun  in  hand,  and  then  to  leap 
off  and  shoot  at  a  running  object,  is  to  show  that  one  has 
the  qualities  which  made  the  cavalry  of  Forrest  so  for- 
midable in  the  Civil  War.  There  could  be  no  better 
training  for  the  mounted  rifleman,  the  most  efficient  type 
of  modern  soldier. 

By  far  the  easiest  way  to  kill  the  whitetail  is  in  one 
or  other  of  certain  methods  which  entail  very  little  work 
or  skill  on  the  part  of  the  hunter.  The  most  noxious 
of  these,  crusting  in  the  deep  snows,  has  already  been 
spoken  of.  No  sportsman  worthy  of  the  name  would 
ever  follow  so  butcherly  a  method.  Fire  hunting  must 
also  normally  be  ruled  out.  It  is  always  mere  murder 
if  carried  on  by  a  man  who  sits  up  at  a  lick,  and  is  not 
much  better  where  the  hunter  walks  through  the  fields — 
not  to  mention  the  fact  that  on  such  a  walk  he  is  quite 


210  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

as  apt  to  kill  stock  as  to  kill  a  deer.  But  fire  hunting 
from  a  boat,  or  jacking,  as  it  is  called,  though  it  entails 
absolutely  no  skill  in  the  hunter,  and  though  it  is,  and 
ought  to  be,  forbidden,  as  it  can  best  be  carried  on  at 
the  season  when  nursing  does  are  particularly  apt  to  be 
the  victims,  nevertheless  has  a  certain  charm  of  its  own. 
The  first  deer  I  ever  killed,  when  a  boy,  was  obtained 
in  this  way,  and  I  have  always  been  glad  to  have  had 
the  experience,  though  I  have  never  been  willing  to 
repeat  it.  I  was  at  the  time  camped  out  in  the  Adiron- 
dacks. 

Two  ar  three  of  us,  all  boys  of  fifteen  or  sixteen,  had 
been  enjoying  what  was  practically  our  first  experience 
in  camping  out,  having  gone  out  with  two  guides,  Hank 
Martin  and  Mose  Sawyer,  from  Paul  Smith's  on  Lake 
St.  Regis.  My  brother  and  cousin  were  fond  of  fishing 
and  I  was  not,  so  I  was  deputed  to  try  to  bring  in  a 
deer.  I  had  a  double-barrelled  i2-bore  gun,  French  pin- 
fire,  with  which  I  had  industriously  collected  "  speci- 
mens "  on  a  trip  to  Egypt  and  Palestine  and  on  Long 
Island;  except  for  three  or  four  enthralling  but  not  over- 
successful  days  after  woodcock  and  quail,  I  had  done 
no  game  shooting.  As  to  every  healthy  boy  with  a  taste 
for  out-door  life,  the  Northern  forests  were  to  me  a  veri- 
table land  of  enchantment.  We  were  encamped  by  a 
stream  among  the  tall  pines,  and  I  had  enjoyed  every- 
thing; poling  and  paddling  the  boat,  tramping  through 
the  woods,  the  cries  of  chickaree  and  chipmunk,  of  jay, 
woodpecker,  chickadee,  nuthatch,  and  cross-bill,  which 
broke  the  forest  stillness;  and,  above  all,  the  great  reaches 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER  211 

of  sombre  woodland  themselves.  The  heart-shaped  foot- 
prints which  showed  where  the  deer  had  come  down  to 
drink  and  feed  on  the  marshy  edges  of  the  water  made 
my  veins  thrill;  and  the  nights  around  the  flickering 
camp-fire  5eemed  filled  with  romance. 

My  first  experiment  in  jacking  was  a  failure.  The 
jack,  a  bark  lantern,  was  placed  upon  a  stick  in  the  bow 
of  the  boat,  and  I  sat  in  a  cramped  huddle  behind  it,  while 
Mose  Sawyer  plied  the  paddle  with  noiseless  strength 
and  skill  in  the  stern.  I  proved  unable  to  respond  even 
to  the  very  small  demand  made  upon  me,  for  when  we 
actually  did  come  upon  a  deer  I  failed  to  see  it  until 
it  ran,  when  I  missed  it;  and  on  the  way  back  capped  my 
misfortune  by  shooting  a  large  owl  which  perched  on  a 
log  projecting  into  the  water,  looking  at  the  lantern  with 
two  glaring  eyes. 

All  next  day  I  was  miserably  conscious  of  the  smoth- 
ered disfavor  of  my  associates,  and  when  night  fell  was 
told  I  would  have  another  chance  to  redeem  myself. 
This  time  we  started  across  a  carry,  the  guide  carrying 
the  light  boat,  and  launched  it  in  a  quiet  little  pond 
about  a  mile  off.  Dusk  was  just  turning  into  darkness 
when  we  reached  the  edge  of  the  little  lake,  which  was 
perhaps  a  mile  long  by  three-quarters  of  a  mile  across, 
with  indented  shores.  We  did  not  push  off  for  half  an 
hour  or  so,  until  it  was  entirely  dark;  and  then  for  a 
couple  of  hours  we  saw  no  deer.  Nevertheless,  I  thor- 
oughly enjoyed  the  ghostly,  mysterious,  absolutely  silent 
night  ride  over  the  water.  Not  the  faintest  splash  be- 
trayed the  work  of  the  paddler.  The  boat  glided  stealth- 


212  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ily  alongshore,  the  glare  of  the  lantern  bringing  out  for 
one  moment  every  detail  of  the  forest  growth  on  the 
banks,  which  the  next  second  vanished  into  absolute 
blackness.  Several  times  we  saw  muskrats  swimming 
across  the  lane  of  light  cut  by  the  lantern  through  the 
darkness,  and  two  or  three  times  their  sudden  plunging 
and  splashing  caused  my  heart  to  leap.  Once  when  we 
crossed  the  lake  we  came  upon  a  loon  floating  buoyantly 
right  out  in  the  middle  of  it.  It  stayed  until  we  were 
within  ten  yards,  so  that  I  could  see  the  minute  outlines 
of  the  feathers  and  every  movement  of  the  eye.  Then 
it  swam  off,  but  made  no  cry.  At  last,  while  crossing 
the  mouth  of  a  bay  we  heard  a  splashing  sound  among 
the  lilies  inshore,  which  even  my  untrained  ears  recog- 
nized as  different  from  any  of  the  other  noises  we  had 
yet  heard,  and  a  jarring  motion  of  the  paddle  showed 
that  the  paddler  wished  me  to  be  on  the  alert.  With- 
out any  warning,  the  course  of  the  boat  was  suddenly 
changed,  and  I  was  aware  that  we  were  moving  stern 
foremost.  Then  we  swung  around,  and  I  could  soon 
make  out  that  we  were  going  down  the  little  bay.  The 
forest-covered  banks  narrowed;  then  the  marsh  at  the 
end  was  lighted  up,  and  on  its  hither  edge,  knee-deep 
among  the  water-lilies,  appeared  the  figure  of  a  yearling 
buck  still  in  the  red.  It  stood  motionless,  gazing  at  the 
light  with  a  curiosity  wholly  unmixed  with  alarm,  and 
at  the  shot  wheeled  and  fell  at  the  water's  edge.  We 
made  up  our  mind  to  return  to  camp  that  night,  as  it  was 
before  midnight.  I  carried  the  buck  and  the  torch,  and 
the  guide  the  boat,  and  the  mile  walk  over  the  dim  trail, 


THE   WHITETAIL   DEER  213 

occasionally  pitching  forward  across  a  stump  or  root,  was 
a  thing  to  be  remembered.  It  was  my  first  deer,  and 
I  was  very  glad  to  get  it;  but  although  only  a  boy,  I  had 
sense  enough  to  realize  that  it  was  not  an  experience 
worth  repeating.  The  paddler  in  such  a  case  deserves 
considerable  credit,  but  the  shooter  not  a  particle,  even 
aside  from  the  fact  to  which  I  have  already  alluded, 
that  in  too  many  cases  such  shooting  results  in  the  killing 
of  nursing  does.  No  matter  how  young  a  sportsman  is, 
if  he  has  a  healthy  mind,  he  will  not  long  take  pleasure 
in  any  method  of  hunting  in  which  somebody  else  shows 
the  skill  and  does  the  work  so  that  his  share  is  only  nomi- 
nal. The  minute  that  sport  is  carried  on  on  these  terms 
it  becomes  a  sham,  and  a  sham  is  always  detrimental  to 
all  who  take  part  in  it. 

Whitetail  are  comparatively  easily  killed  with 
hounds,  and  there  are  very  many  places  where  this  is 
almost  the  only  way  they  can  be  killed  at  all.  Formerly 
in  the  Adirondacks  this  method  of  hunting  was  carried 
on  under  circumstances  which  rendered  those  who  took 
part  in  it  objects  of  deserved  contempt.  The  sportsman 
stood  in  a  boat  while  his  guides  put  out  one  or  two  hounds 
in  the  chosen  forest  side.  After  a  longer  or  shorter  run 
the  deer  took  to  the  water;  for  whitetail  are  excellent 
swimmers,  and  when  pursued  by  hounds  try  to  shake 
them  off  by  wading  up  or  down  stream  or  by  swimming 
across  a  pond,  and,  if  tired,  come  to  bay  in  some  pool 
or  rapid.  Once  the  unfortunate  deer  was  in  the  water, 
the  guide  rowed  the  boat  after  it.  If  it  was  yet  early  in 
the  season,  and  the  deer  was  still  in  the  red  summer 


214  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

coat,  it  would  sink  when  shot,  and  therefore  the  guide 
would  usually  take  hold  of  its  tail  before  the  would-be 
Nimrod  butchered  it.  If  the  deer  was  in  the  blue,  the 
carcass  would  float,  so  it  was  not  necessary  to  do  anything 
quite  so  palpably  absurd.  But  such  sport,  so  far  as  the 
man  who  did  the  shooting  was  concerned,  had  not  one 
redeeming  feature.  The  use  of  hounds  has  now  been 
prohibited  by  law. 

In  regions  where  there  are  no  lakes,  and  where  the 
woods  are  thick,  the  shooters  are  stationed  at  runways 
by  which  it  is  supposed  the  deer  may  pass  when  the 
hounds  are  after  them.  Under  such  circumstances  the 
man  has  to  show  the  skill  requisite  to  hit  the  running 
quarry,  and  if  he  uses  the  rifle,  this  means  that  he  must 
possess  a  certain  amount  of  address  in  handling  the  weap- 
on. But  no  other  quality  is  called  for,  and  so  even  this 
method,  though  often  the  only  possible  one  (and  it  may 
be  necessary  to  return  to  it  in  the  Adirondacks) ,  can  never 
rank  high  in  the  eyes  of  men  who  properly  appreciate 
what  big  game  hunting  should  be.  It  is  the  usual  method 
of  killing  deer  on  Long  Island,  during  the  three  or  four 
days  of  each  year  when  they  can  be  legally  hunted.  The 
deer  are  found  along  the  south  and  centre  of  the  eastern 
half  of  the  island;. they  were  nearly  exterminated  a  dozen 
years  ago,  but  under  good  laws  they  have  recently  in- 
creased greatly.  The  extensive  grounds  of  the  various 
sportsmen's  clubs,  and  the  forests  of  scrub-oak  in  the 
sparsely  settled  inland  region,  give  them  good  harbors 
and  sanctuaries.  On  the  days  when  it  is  legal  to  shoot 
them,  hundreds  of  hunters  turn  out  from  the  neighbor- 


THE  WHITETAIL   DEER  215 

hood,  and  indeed  from  all  the  island  and  from  New  York. 
On  such  a  day  it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  any  work 
done;  for  the  sport  is  most  democratic,  and  is  shared  by 
everybody.  The  hunters  choose  their  position  before 
dawn,  lying  in  lines  wherever  deer  are  likely  to  pass, 
while  the  hounds  are  turned  into  every  patch  of  thick 
cover.  A  most  lively  day  follows,  the  fusillade  being 
terrific ;  some  men  are  invariably  shot,  and  a  goodly  num- 
ber of  deer  are  killed,  mostly  by  wily  old  hunters  who 
kill  ducks  and  quail  for  a  living  in  the  fall. 

When  the  horse  is  used  together  with  the  hounds  the 
conditions  are  changed.  To  ride  a  horse  over  rough 
country  after  game  always  implies  hardihood  and  good 
horsemanship,  and  therefore  makes  the  sport  a  worthy 
one.  In  very  open  country — in  such  country,  for  instance, 
as  the  whitetail  formerly  frequented  both  in  Texas  and 
the  Indian  Territory — the  horseman  could  ride  at  the 
tail  of  the  pack  until  the  deer  was  fairly  run  down.  But 
nowadays  I  know  of  no  place  where  this  is  possible,  for 
the  whitetail's  haunts  are  such  as  to  make  it  impracti- 
cable for  any  rider  to  keep  directly  behind  the  hounds. 
What  he  must  do  is  to  try  to  cut  the  game  off  by  riding 
from  point  to  point.  He  then  leaps  off  the  horse  and 
watches  his  chance  for  a  shot.  This  is  the  way  in  which 
Mr.  Mcllhenny  has  done  most  of  his  deer-hunting,  in 
the  neighborhood  of  his  Louisiana  plantation. 

Around  my  ranch  I  very  rarely  tried  to  still-hunt 
whitetail,  because  it  was  always  easier  to  get  mule-deer 
or  prongbuck,  if  I  had  time  to  go  off  for  an  all-day's 
hunt  Occasionally,  however,  we  would  have  at  the 


2i 6  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ranch  hounds,  usually  of  the  old  black-and-tan  Southern 
type,  and  then  if  we  needed  meat,  and  there  was  not  time 
for  a  hunt  back  in  the  hills,  we  would  turn  out  and  hunt 
one  or  two  of  the  river  bottoms  with  these  hounds.  If 
I  rode  off  to  the  prairies  or  the  hills  I  went  alone,  but 
if  the  quarry  was  a  whitetail,  our  chance  of  success  de- 
pended upon  our  having  a  sufficient  number  of  guns  to 
watch  the  different  passes  and  runways.  Accordingly, 
my  own  share  of  the  chase  was  usually  limited  to  the 
fun  of  listening  to  the  hounds,  and  of  galloping  at  head- 
long speed  from  one  point  where  I  thought  the  deer 
would  not  pass  to  some  other,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  did  not  pass  either.  The  redeeming  feature  of  the 
situation  was  that  if  I  did  get  a  shot,  I  almost  always  got 
my  deer.  Under  ordinary  circumstances  to  merely 
wound  a  deer  is  worse  than  not  hitting  it;  but  when  there 
are  hounds  along  they  are  certain  to  bring  the  wounded 
animal  to  bay,  and  so  on  these  hunts  we  usually  got 
venison. 

Of  course,  I  occasionally  got  a  whitetail  when  I 
was  alone,  whether  with  the  hounds  or  without  them. 
There  were  whitetail  on  the  very  bottom  on  which  the 
ranch  house  stood,  as  well  as  on  the  bottom  opposite, 
and  on  those  to  the  right  and  left  up  and  down  stream. 
Occasionally  I  have  taken  the  hounds  out  alone,  and 
then  as  they  chevied  the  whitetail  around  the  bottom, 
have  endeavored  by  rapid  running  on  foot  or  on  horse- 
back to  get  to  some  place  from  which  I  could  obtain 
a  shot.  The  deer  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  hounds 
could  not  overtake  them,  and  they  would  usually  do  a 


THE   WHITETAIL   DEER  217 

great  deal  of  sneaking  round  and  round  through  the  un- 
derbrush and  cottonwoods  before  they  finally  made  up 
their  minds  to  leave  the  bottom.  On  one  occasion  a  buck 
came  sneaking  down  a  game  trail  through  the  buck  brush 
where  I  stood,  going  so  low  that  I  could  just  see  the 
tips  of  his  antlers,  and  though  I  made  desperate  efforts 
I  was  not  able  to  get  into  a  position  from  which  I  could 
obtain  a  shot.  On  another  occasion,  while  I  was  looking 
intently  into  a  wood  through  which  I  was  certain  a  deer 
would  pass,  it  deliberately  took  to  the  open  ground  be- 
hind me,  and  I  did  not  see  it  until  it  was  just  vanishing. 
Normally,  the  end  of  my  efforts  was  that  the  deer  went 
off  and  the  hounds  disappeared  after  it,  not  to  return 
for  six  or  eight  hours.  Once  or  twice  things  favored 
me ;  I  happened  to  take  the  right  turn  or  go  in  the  right 
direction,  and  the  deer  happened  to  blunder  past  me;  and 
then  I  returned  with  venison  for  supper.  Two  or  three 
times  I  shot  deer  about  nightfall  or  at  dawn,  in  the  im- 
mediate neighborhood  of  the  ranch,  obtaining  them  by 
sneaking  as  noiselessly  as  possible  along  the  cattle  trails 
through  the  brush  and  timber,  or  by  slipping  along  the 
edge  of  the  river  bank.  Several  times  I  saw  deer  while 
I  was  sitting  on  the  piazza  or  on  the  doorstep  of  the 
ranch,  and  on  one  occasion  I  stepped  back  into  the  house, 
got  the  rifle,  and  dropped  the  animal  from  where  I  stood. 
On  yet  other  occasions  I  obtained  whitetail  which 
lived  not  on  the  river  bottoms  but  among  the  big  patches 
of  brush  and  timber  in  the  larger  creeks.  When  they 
were  found  in  such  country  I  hunted  them  very  much 
as  I  hunted  the  mule-deer,  and  usually  shot  one  when 


2i 8  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

I  was  expecting  as  much  to  see  a  mule-deer  as  a  white- 
tail.  When  the  game  was  plentiful  I  would  often  stay 
on  my  horse  until  the  moment  of  obtaining  the  shot,  espe- 
cially if  it  was  in  the  early  morning  or  late  evening.  My 
method  then  was  to  ride  slowly  and  quietly  down  the 
winding  valleys  and  across  the  spurs,  hugging  the  bank, 
so  that,  if  deer  were  feeding  in  the  open,  I  would  get 
close  up  before  either  of  us  saw  the  other.  Sometimes 
the  deer  would  halt  for  a  moment  when  it  saw  me,  and 
sometimes  it  would  bound  instantly  away.  In  either  case 
my  chance  lay  in  the  speed  with  which  I  could  jump 
off  the  horse  and  take  my  shot.  Even  in  favorable  locali- 
ties this  method  was  of  less  avail  with  whitetail  than 
mule-deer,  because  the  former  were  so  much  more  apt 
to  skulk. 

As  soon  as  game  became  less  plentiful  my  hunting  had 
to  be  done  on  foot.  My  object  was  to  be  on  the  hunting- 
ground  by  dawn,  or  else  to  stay  out  there  until  it  grew 
too  dark  to  see  the  sights  of  my  rifle.  Often  all  I  did 
was  to  keep  moving  as  quietly  as  possible  through  likely 
ground,  ever  on  the  alert  for  the  least  trace  of  game; 
sometimes  I  would  select  a  lookout  and  carefully  scan 
a  likely  country  to  see  if  I  could  not  detect  something 
moving.  On  one  occasion  I  obtained  an  old  whitetail 
buck  by  the  simple  exercise  of  patience.  I  had  twice 
found  him  in  a  broad  basin,  composed  of  several  coulees, 
all  running  down  to  form  the  head  of  a  big  creek,  and 
all  of  them  well  timbered.  He  dodged  me  on  both  occa- 
sions, and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  spend  a 
whole  day  in  watching  for  him  from  a  little  natural 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER 


219 


ambush  of  sage-bush  and  cedar  on  a  high  point  which 
overlooked  the  entire  basin.  I  crept  up  to  my  ambush 
with  the  utmost  caution  early  in  the  morning,  and  there 
I  spent  the  entire  day,  with  my  lunch  and  a  water-bottle, 
continually  scanning  the  whole  region  most  carefully 
with  the  glasses.  The  day  passed  less  monotonously  than 
it  sounds,  for  every  now  and  then  I  would  catch  a  glimpse 
of  wild  life;  once  a  fox,  once  a  coyote,  and  once  a  badger; 
while  the  little  chipmunks  had  a  fine  time  playing  all 
around  me.  At  last,  about  mid-afternoon,  I  suddenly  saw 
the  buck  come  quietly  out  of  the  dense  thicket  in  which 
he  had  made  his  midday  bed,  and  deliberately  walk  up 
a  hillside  and  lie  down  in  a  thin  clump  of  ash  where  the 
sun  could  get  at  him — for  it  was  in  September,  just  be- 
fore the  rut  began.  There  was  no  chance  of  stalking 
him  in  the  place  he  had  chosen,  and  all  I  could  do  was 
to  wait.  It  was  nearly  sunset  before  he  moved  again, 
except  that  I  occasionally  saw  him  turn  his  head.  Then 
he  got  up,  and  after  carefully  scrutinizing  all  the  neigh- 
borhood, moved  down  into  a  patch  of  fairly  thick  brush, 
where  I  could  see  him  standing  and  occasionally  feeding, 
all  the  time  moving  slowly  up  the  valley.  I  now  slipped 
most  cautiously  back  and  trotted  nearly  a  mile  until  I 
could  come  up  behind  one  of  the  ridges  bounding  the 
valley  in  which  he  was.  The  wind  had  dropped  and  it 
was  almost  absolutely  still  when  I  crawled  flat  on  my  face 
to  the  crest,  my  hat  in  my  left  hand,  my  rifle  in  my 
right.  There  was  a  big  sage-bush  conveniently  near,  and 
under  this  I  peered.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  brush  in 
the  valley  below,  and  if  I  had  not  known  that  the  buck 


220  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

was  there,  I  would  never  have  discovered  him.  As  it 
was,  I  watched  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  had  about 
made  up  my  mind  that  he  must  have  gone  somewhere 
else,  when  a  slight  movement  nearly  below  me  attracted 
my  attention,  and  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  him  nearly  three 
hundred  yards  off,  moving  quietly  along  by  the  side  of 
a  little  dry  watercourse  which  was  right  in  the  middle 
of  the  brush.  I  waited  until  he  was  well  past,  and  then 
again  slipped  back  with  the  utmost  care,  and  ran  on  until 
I  was  nearly  opposite  the  head  of  the  coulee,  when  I  again 
approached  the  ridge-line.  Here  there  was  no  sage-bush, 
only  tufts  of  tall  grass,  which  were  stirring  in  the  little 
breeze  which  had  just  sprung  up,  fortunately  in  the 
right  direction.  Taking  advantage  of  a  slight  inequality 
in  the  soil,  I  managed  to  get  behind  one  of  these  tufts, 
and  almost  immediately  saw  the  buck.  Toward  the  head 
of  the  coulee  the  brush  had  become  scanty  and  low,  and 
he  was  now  walking  straight  forward,  evidently  keeping 
a  sharp  lookout.  The  sun  had  just  set.  His  course  took 
him  past  me  at  a  distance  of  eighty  yards.  When  di- 
rectly opposite  I  raised  myself  on  my  elbows,  drawing 
up  the  rifle,  which  I  had  shoved  ahead  of  me.  The 
movement  of  course  caught  his  eye  at  once;  he  halted 
for  one  second  to  look  around  and  see  what  it  was,  and 
during  that  second  I  pulled  the  trigger.  Away  he  went, 
his  white  flag  switching  desperately,  and  though  he  gal- 
loped over  the  hill,  I  felt  he  was  mine.  However,  when 
I  got  to  the  top  of  the  rise  over  which  he  had  gone, 
I  could  not  see  him,  and  as  there  was  a  deep  though 
narrow  coulee  filled  with  brush  on  the  other  side,  I  had 


THE   WHITETAIL    DEER  221 

a  very  ugly  feeling  that  I  might  have  lost  him,  in  spite 
of  the  quantity  of  blood  he  had  left  along  his  trail.  It 
was  getting  dark,  and  I  plunged  quickly  into  the  coulee. 
Usually  a  wounded  deer  should  not  be  followed  until  it 
has  had  time  to  grow  stiff,  but  this  was  just  one  of  the 
cases  where  the  rule  would  have  worked  badly;  in  the 
first  place,  because  darkness  was  coming  on,  and  in  the 
next  place,  because  the  animal  was  certain  to  die  shortly, 
and  all  that  I  wanted  was  to  see  where  he  was.  I  fol- 
lowed his  trail  into  the  coulee,  and  expected  to  find  that 
he  had  turned  down  it,  but  a  hurried  examination  in  the 
fading  light  showed  me  that  he  had  taken  the  opposite 
course,  and  I  scrambled  hastily  out  on  the  other  side, 
and  trotted  along,  staring  into  the  brush,  and  now  and 
then  shouting  or  throwing  in  a  clod  of  earth.  When 
nearly  at  the  head  there  was  a  crackling  in  the  brush, 
and  out  burst  the  wounded  buck.  He  disappeared  be- 
hind a  clump  of  elms,  but  he  had  a  hard  hill  to  go  up, 
and  the  effort  was  too  much  for  him.  When  I  next  saw 
him  he  had  halted,  and  before  I  could  fire  again  down 
he  came. 

On  another  occasion  I  spied  a  whole  herd  of  white- 
tail  feeding  in  a  natural  meadow,  right  out  in  the  open, 
in  mid-afternoon,  and  was  able  to  get  up  so  close  that 
when  I  finally  shot  a  yearling  buck  (which  was  one  of 
the  deer  farthest  away  from  me,  there  being  no  big  buck 
in  the  outfit),  the  remaining  deer,  all  does  and  fawns, 
scattered  in  every  direction,  some  galloping  right  past 
me  in  their  panic.  Once  or  twice  I  was  able  to  perform 
a  feat  of  which  I  had  read,  but  in  which  I  scarcely 


222  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

believed.  This  was,  to  creep  up  to  a  deer  while  feed- 
ing in  the  open,  by  watching  when  it  shook  its  tail,  and 
then  remaining  motionless.  I  cannot  say  whether  the 
habit  is  a  universal  one,  but  on  two  occasions  at  least 
I  was  able  thus  to  creep  up  to  the  feeding  deer,  because 
before  lifting  its  head  it  invariably  shook  its  tail,  thereby 
warning  me  to  stay  without  moving  until  it  had  lifted 
its  head,  scrutinized  the  landscape,  and  again  lowered 
its  head  to  graze.  The  eyesight  of  the  whitetail,  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  pronghorn  antelope,  is  poor.  It 
notes  whatever  is  in  motion,  but  it  seems  unable  to  dis- 
tinguish clearly  anything  that  is  not  in  motion.  On  the 
occasions  in  question  no  antelope  that  I  have  ever  seen 
would  have  failed  to  notice  me  at  once  and  to  take  alarm. 
But  the  whitetail,  although  it  scrutinized  me  narrowly, 
while  I  lay  motionless  with  my  head  toward  it,  seemed 
in  each  case  to  think  that  I  must  be  harmless,  and  after 
a  while  it  would  go  on  feeding.  In  one  instance  the 
animal  fed  over  a  ridge  and  walked  off  before  I  could 
get  a  shot;  in  the  other  instance  I  killed  it. 

In  1894,  on  the  last  day  I  spent  at  the  ranch,  and 
with  the  last  bullet  I  fired  from  my  rifle,  I  killed  a  fine 
whitetail  buck.  I  left  the  ranch  house  early  in  the  after- 
noon on  my  favorite  pony,  Muley,  my  foreman,  Sylvane 
Ferris,  riding  with  me.  We  forded  the  shallow  river 
and  rode  up  a  long  winding  coulee,  with  belts  of  tim- 
ber running  down  its  bottom.  After  going  a  couple  of 
miles,  by  sheer  good  luck  we  stumbled  on  three  white- 
tail — a  buck,  a  doe  and  a  fawn.  When  we  saw  them 
they  were  trying  to  sneak  off,  and  immediately  my  fore- 


THE  WHITETAIL   DEER  223 

man  galloped  toward  one  end  of  the  belt  of  timber  in 
which  they  were,  and  started  to  ride  down  through  it, 
while  I  ran  Muley  to  the  other  end  to  intercept  them. 
They  were,  of  course,  quite  likely  to  break  off  to  one 
side ;  but  this  happened  to  be  one  of  the  occasions  when 
everything  went  right.  When  I  reached  the  spot  from 
which  I  covered  the  exits  from  the  timber,  I  leaped  off, 
and  immediately  afterward  heard  a  shout  from  my  fore- 
man that  told  me  the  deer  were  on  foot.  Muley  was 
a  pet  horse,  and  enjoyed  immensely  the  gallop  after 
game;  but  his  nerves  invariably  failed  him  at  the  shot. 
On  this  occasion  he  stood  snorting  beside  me,  and  finally, 
as  the  deer  came  in  sight,  away  he  tore — only  to  go  about 
200  yards,  however,  and  stand  and  watch  us,  snorting, 
with  his  ears  pricked  forward  until,  when  I  needed  him, 
I  went  for  him.  At  the  moment,  however,  I  paid  no  heed 
to  Muley,  for  a  cracking  in  the  brush  told  me  the  game 
was  close,  and  I  caught  the  shadowy  outlines  of  the  doe 
and  the  fawn  as  they  scudded  through  the  timber.  By 
good  luck,  the  buck,  evidently  flurried,  came  right  on  the 
edge  of  the  woods  next  to  me,  and  as  he  passed,  running 
like  a  quarter-horse,  I  held  well  ahead  of  him  and  pulled 
trigger.  The  bullet  broke  his  neck  and  down  he  went — 
a  fine  fellow  with  a  handsome  ten-point  head,  and  fat 
as  a  prize  sheep;  for  it  was  just  before  the  rut.  Then 
we  rode  home,  and  I  sat  in  a  rocking-chair  on  the  ranch- 
house  veranda,  looking  across  the  wide,  sandy  river  bed 
at  the  strangely  shaped  buttes  and  the  groves  of  shimmer- 
ing cottonwoods  until  the  sun  went  down  and  the  frosty 
air  bade  me  go  in. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE   MULE-DEER,    OR   ROCKY   MOUNTAIN    BLACKTAIL 

THIS  is  the  largest  and  finest  of  our  three  smaller  deer. 
Throughout  its  range  it  is  known  as  the  blacktail  deer, 
and  it  has  as  good  a  historic  claim  to  the  title  as  its  Pacific 
coast  kinsman,  the  coast  or  true  blacktail.  In  writing 
purely  of  this  species,  it  seems  like  pedantry  to  call  it 
by  its  book  name  of  mule-deer,  a  name  which  conveys 
little  or  no  meaning  to  the  people  who  live  in  its  haunts 
and  who  hunt  it;  but  it  is  certainly  very  confusing  to 
know  two  distinct  types  of  deer  by  one  name,  and  as  both 
the  Rocky  Mountain  blacktail  and  Coast  blacktail  are 
thus  known,  and  as  the  former  is  occasionally  known  as 
mule-deer,  I  shall,  for  convenience'  sake,  speak  of  it  un- 
der this  name — a  name  given  it  because  of  its  great  ears, 
which  rather  detract  from  its  otherwise  very  handsome 
appearance. 

The  mule-deer  is  a  striking  and  beautiful  animal.  As 
is  the  case  with  our  other  species,  it  varies  greatly  in 
size,  but  is  on  the  average  heavier  than  either  the  white- 
tail  or  the  true  blacktail.  The  horns  also  average  longer 
and  heavier,  and  in  exceptional  heads  are  really  note- 
worthy trophies.  Ordinarily  a  full-grown  buck  has  a 
head  of  ten  distinct  and  well-developed  points,  eight  of 
which  consist  of  the  bifurcations  of  the  two  main  prongs 

into  which  each  antler  divides,  while  in  addition  there 

224 


THE    MULE-DEER  225 

are  two  shorter  basal  or  frontal  points.  But  the  latter 
are  very  irregular,  being  sometimes  missing;  while  some- 
times there  are  two  or  three  of  them  on  each  antler. 
When  missing  it  usually  means  that  the  antlers  are  of 
young  animals  that  have  not  attained  their  full  growth. 
A  yearling  will  sometimes  have  merely  a  pair  of  spikes, 
and  sometimes  each  spike  will  be  bifurcated  so  as  to  make 
two  points.  A  two-year-old  may  develop  antlers  which, 
though  small,  possess  the  normal  four  points.  Occasion- 
ally, where  unusually  big  heads  are  developed,  there  are 
a  number  of  extra  points.  If  these  are  due  to  deformity, 
they  simply  take  away  from  the  beauty  of  the  head ;  but 
where  they  are  symmetrical,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
antlers  are  massive,  they  add  greatly  to  the  beauty.  All 
the  handsomest  and  largest  heads  show  this  symmetri- 
cal development  of  extra  points.  It  is  rather  hard  to 
lay  down  a  hard-and-fast  rule  for  counting  them.  The 
largest  and  finest  antlers  are  usually  rough,  and  it  is 
not  easy  to  say  when  a  particular  point  in  roughness  has 
developed  so  that  it  may  legitimately  be  called  a  prong. 
The  largest  head  I  ever  got  to  my  own  rifle  had  twenty- 
eight  points,  symmetrically  arranged,  the  antlers  being 
rough  and  very  massive  as  well  as  very  long.  The  buck 
was  an  immense  fellow,  but  no  bigger  than  other  bucks. 
I  have  shot  which  possessed  ordinary  heads. 

The  mule-deer  is  found  from  the  rough  country 
which  begins  along  the  eastern  edges  of  the  great  plains, 
across  the  Rocky  Mountains  to  the  eastern  slopes  of  the 
coast  ranges,  and  into  southern  California.  It  extends 
into  Canada  on  the  north  and  Mexico  on  the  south.  On 


226  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  west  it  touches,  and  here  and  there  crosses,  the  boun- 
daries of  the  Coast  blacktail.  The  whitetail  is  found  in 
places  throughout  its  habitat  from  east  to  west  and  from 
north  to  south.  But  there  are  great  regions  in  this  ter- 
ritory which  are  peculiarly  fitted  for  the  mule-deer,  but 
in  which  the  whitetail  is  never  found,  as  the  habits  of 
the  two  are  entirely  different.  In  the  mountains  of  west- 
ern Colorado  and  Wyoming,  for  instance,  the  mule-deer 
swarms,  but  the  whole  region  is  unfit  for  the  whitetail, 
which  is  accordingly  only  found  in  a  very  few  narrowly 
restricted  localities. 

The  mule-deer  does  not  hold  its  own  as  well  as  the 
whitetail  in  the  presence  of  man,  but  it  is  by  no  means 
as  quickly  exterminated  as  the  wapiti.  The  outside 
limits  of  its  range  have  not  shrunk  materially  in  the  cen- 
tury during  which  it  has  been  known  to  white  hunters. 
It  was  never  found  until  the  fertile,  moist  country  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  was  passed  and  the  dry  plains  region 
to  the  west  of  it  reached,  and  it  still  exists  in  some  num- 
bers here  and  there  in  this  country,  as,  for  instance,  in 
the  Bad  Lands  along  the  Little  Missouri,  and  in  the 
Black  Hills.  But  although  its  limits  of  distribution  have 
not  very  sensibly  diminished,  there  are  large  portions  of 
the  range  within  these  limits  from  which  it  has  practically 
vanished,  and  in  most  places  its  numbers  have  been  woe- 
fully thinned.  It  holds  its  own  best  among  the  more  in- 
accessible mountain  masses  of  the  Rockies,  and  from 
Chihuahua  to  Alberta  there  are  tracts  where  it  is  still 
abundant.  Yet  even  in  these  places  the  numbers  are  di- 
minishing, and  this  process  can  be  arrested  only  by  better 


THE   MULE-DEER  227 

laws,  and  above  all,  by  a  better  administration  of  the  law. 
The  national  Government  could  do  much  by  establishing 
its  forest  reserves  as  game  reserves,  and  putting  on  a  suf- 
ficient number  of  forest  rangers  who  should  be  empow- 
ered to  prevent  all  hunting  on  the  reserves.  The  State 
governments  can  do  still  more.  Colorado  has  good  laws, 
but  they  are  not  well  enforced.  The  easy  method  of 
accounting  for  this  fact  is  to  say  that  it  is  due  to  the 
politicians;  but  in  reality  the  politicians  merely  represent 
the  wishes,  or  more  commonly  the  indifference,  of  the 
people.  As  long  as  the  good  citizens  of  a  State  are  indif- 
ferent to  game  protection,  or  take  but  a  tepid  interest 
in  it,  the  politicians,  through  their  agents,  will  leave  the 
game  laws  unenforced.  But  if  the  people  of  Colorado, 
Wyoming,  and  Montana  come  to  feel  the  genuine  interest 
in  the  enforcement  of  these  laws  that  the  people  of  Maine 
and  Vermont  have  grown  to  take  during  the  past  twenty 
years,  that  the  people  of  Montana  and  Wyoming  who 
dwell  alongside  the  Yellowstone  Park  are  already  taking 
— then  not  only  will  the  mule-deer  cease  to  diminish,  but 
it  will  positively  increase.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
such  a  change  would  only  be  to  the  advantage  of  well- 
to-do  sportsmen.  Men  who  are  interested  in  hunting  for 
hunting's  sake,  men  who  come  from  the  great  cities  re- 
mote from  the  mountains  in  order  to  get  three  or  four 
weeks'  healthy,  manly  holiday,  would  undoubtedly  be 
benefited;  but  the  greatest  benefit  would  be  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  localities,  of  the  neighborhoods  round  about. 
The  presence  of  the  game  would  attract  outsiders  who 
would  leave  in  the  country  money,  or  its  equivalent, 


228  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

which  would  many  times  surpass  in  value  the  game  they 
actually  killed;  and  furthermore,  the  preservation  of  the 
game  would  mean  that  the  ranchmen  and  grangers  who 
live  near  its  haunts  would  have  in  perpetuity  the  chance 
of  following  the  pleasantest  and  healthiest  of  all  out-of- 
door  pastimes;  whereas,  if  through  their  short-sighted- 
ness they  destroy,  or  permit  to  be  destroyed,  the  game, 
they  are  themselves  responsible  for  the  fact  that  their 
children  and  children's  children  will  find  themselves  for- 
ever debarred  from  a  pursuit  which  must  under  such 
circumstances  become  the  amusement  only  of  the  very 
rich.  If  we  are  really  alive  to  our  opportunities  under 
our  democratic  social  and  political  system,  we  can  keep 
for  ourselves — and  by  "  ourselves  "  I  mean  the  enormous 
bulk  of  men  whose  means  range  from  moderate  to  very 
small — ample  opportunity  for  the  enjoyment  of  hunting 
and  shooting,  of  vigorous  and  blood-stirring  out-of-doors 
sport.  If  we  fail  to  take  advantage  of  our  possibilities, 
if  we  fail  to  pass,  in  the  interest  of  all,  wise  game  laws, 
and  to  see  that  these  game  laws  are  properly  enforced, 
we  shall  then  have  to  thank  ourselves  if  in  the  future  the 
game  is  only  found  in  the  game  preserves  of  the  wealthy; 
and  under  such  circumstances  only  these  same  wealthy 
people  will  have  the  chance  to  hunt  it. 

The  mule-deer  differs  widely  from  the  whitetail  in 
its  habits,  and  especially  in  its  gait,  and  in  the  kind  of 
country  which  it  frequents.  Although  in  many  parts  of 
its  range  it  is  found  side  by  side  with  its  whitetail  cousin, 
the  two  do  not  actually  associate  together,  and  their  pro- 
pinquity is  due  simply  to  the  fact,  that  the  river  bottoms 


THE    MULE-DEER  229 

being  a  favorite  haunt  of  the  whitetail,  long  tongues  of 
the  distribution  area  of  this  species  are  thrust  into  the 
domain  of  its  bolder,  less  stealthy  and  less  crafty  kinsman. 
Throughout  the  plains  country  the  whitetail  is  the  deer  of 
the  river  bottoms,  where  the  rank  growth  gives  it  secure 
hiding-places,  as  well  as  ample  food.  The  mule-deer,  on 
the  contrary,  never  comes  down  into  the  dense  growths 
of  the  river  bottoms.  Throughout  the  plains  country 
it  is  the  deer  of  the  broken  Bad  Lands  which  fringe  these 
river  bottoms  on  either  side,  and  of  the  rough  ravines 
which  wind  their  way  through  the  Bad  Lands  to  the  edge 
of  the  prairie  country  which  lies  back  of  them.  The 
broken  hills,  their  gorges  filled  with  patches  of  ash,  buck 
brush,  cedar,  and  dwarf  pine,  form  a  country  in  which 
the  mule-deer  revels.  The  whitetail  will,  at  times,  wan- 
der far  out  on  the  prairies  where  the  grass  is  tall  and 
rank;  but  it  is  not  nearly  so  bold  or  fond  of  the  open 
as  the  mule-deer.  The  latter  is  frequently  found  in  hilly 
country  where  the  covering  is  so  scanty  that  the  animal 
must  be  perpetually  on  the  watch,  as  if  it  were  a  bighorn 
or  prongbuck,  in  order  to  spy  its  foes  at  a  distance  and 
escape  before  they  can  come  near;  whereas  the  whitetail 
usually  seeks  to  elude  observation  by  hiding — by  its 
crouching,  stealthy  habits. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  with  the  mule- 
deer,  as  with  all  other  species  of  animals,  there  is  a  wide 
variability  in  habits  under  different  conditions.  This  is 
often  forgotten  even  by  trained  naturalists,  who  accept 
the  observations  made  in  one  locality  as  if  they  applied 
throughout  the  range  of  the  species.  Thus  in  the  gen- 


23° 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


erally  good  account  of  the  habits  of  this  species  in  Mr. 
Lydeker's  book  on  the  "  Deer  of  All  Lands  "  it  is  asserted 
that  mule-deer  never  dwell  permanently  in  the  forest,  and 
feed  almost  exclusively  on  grass.  The  first  statement  is 
entirely,  the  second  only  partly,  true  of  the  mule-deer  of 
the  plains  from  the  Little  Missouri  westward  to  the  head- 
waters of  the  Platte,  the  Yellowstone,  and  the  Big  Horn; 
but  there  are  large  parts  of  the  Rockies  in  which  neither 
statement  applies  at  all.  In  the  course  of  several  hunt- 
ing trips  among  the  densely  wooded  mountains  of  western 
Montana,  along  the  water-shed  separating  the  streams 
that  flow  into  Clarke's  Fork  of  the  Columbia  from  those 
that  ultimately  empty  into  Kootenay  Lake,  I  found  the 
mule-deer  plentiful  in  many  places  where  practically  the 
whole  country  was  covered  by  dense  forest,  and  where 
the  opportunities  for  grazing  were  small  indeed,  as  we 
found  to  our  cost  in  connection  with  our  pack-train.  In 
this  region  the  mule-deer  lived  the  entire  time  among 
the  timber,  and  subsisted  for  the  most  part  on  browse. 
Occasionally  they  would  find  an  open  glade  and  graze; 
but  the  stomachs  of  those  killed  contained  not  grass,  but 
blueberries  and  the  leaves  and  delicate  tips  of  bushes.  I 
was  not  in  this  country  in  winter,  but  it  was  evident  that 
even  at  that  season  the  deer  must  spend  their  time  in  the 
thick  timber.  There  was  no  chance  for  them  to  go  above 
the  timber  line,  because  the  mountains  were  densely 
wooded  to  their  summits,  and  the  white  goats  of  the  local- 
ity also  lived  permanently  in  the  timber.1  It  was  far 

1 1  call  particular  attention  to  this  fact  concerning  the  white  goat,  as  certain 
recent  writers,  including  Mr.  Madison  Grant,  have  erroneously  denied  it. 


THE    MULE-DEER  231 

harder  to  get  the  mule-deer  than  it  was  to  get  the  white 
goats,  for  the  latter  were  infinitely  more  conspicuous, 
were  slower  in  their  movements,  and  bolder  and  less  shy. 
Almost  the  only  way  we  succeeded  in  killing  the  deer 
was  by  finding  one  of  their  well-trodden  paths  and  lying 
in  wait  beside  it  very  early  in  the  morning  or  quite  late 
in  the  afternoon.  The  season  was  August  and  September, 
and  the  deer  were  astir  long  before  sunset.  They  usually, 
but  not  always,  lay  high  up  on  the  mountain-sides,  and 
while  they  sometimes  wandered  to  and  fro  browsing  on 
the  mountains,  they  often  came  down  to  feed  in  the  val- 
leys, where  the  berries  were  thicker.  Their  paths  were 
well  beaten,  although,  like  all  game  trails,  after  being 
as  plainly  marked  as  a  pony  track  for  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  or  so,  they  would  suddenly  grow  faint  and  vanish. 
The  paths  ran  nearly  straight  up  and  down  hill,  and  even 
when  entirely  undisturbed,  the  deer  often  came  down 
them  at  a  great  rate,  bouncing  along  in  a  way  that  showed 
that  they  had  no  fear  of  developing  the  sprung  knees 
which  we  should  fear  for  a  domestic  animal  which  habit- 
ually tried  the  same  experiment. 

In  other  habits  also  the  deer  vary  widely  in  different 
localities.  For  instance,  there  is  an  absolute  contrast  as 
regards  their  migratory  habits  between  the  mule-deer 
which  live  in  the  Bad  Lands  along  the  Little  Missouri, 
and  those  which  live  in  northwestern  Colorado ;  and  this 
difference  is  characteristic  generally  of  the  deer  which 
in  the  summer  dwell  in  the  high  mountains,  as  contrasted 
with  those  which  bear  and  rear  their  young  in  the  low, 
broken  hill-country.  Along  the  Little  Missouri  there 


232 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


was  no  regular  or  clearly  defined  migration  of  the  mule- 
deer  in  a  mass.  Some  individuals,  or  groups  of  individ- 
uals, shifted  their  quarters  for  a  few  miles,  so  that  in  the 
spring,  for  instance,  a  particular  district  of  a  few  square 
miles,  in  which  they  had  been  abundant  before,  might 
be  wholly  without  them.  But  there  were  other  districts, 
which  happened  to  afford  at  all  times  sufficient  food  and 
shelter,  in  which  they  were  to  be  found  the  year  round; 
and  the  animals  did  not  band  and  migrate  as  the  prong- 
bucks  did  in  the  same  region.  In  the  immediate  neigh- 
borhood of  my  ranch  there  were  groups  of  high  hills 
containing  springs  of  water,  good  grass,  and  an  abun- 
dance of  cedar,  ash,  and  all  kinds  of  brush  in  which  the 
mule-deer  were  permanent  residents.  There  were  big 
dry  creeks,  with  well-wooded  bottoms,  lying  among  rug- 
ged hills,  in  which  I  have  found  whitetail  and  mule-deer 
literally  within  a  stone's  throw  of  one  another.  I  once 
started  from  two  adjoining  pockets  in  this  particular 
creek  two  does,  each  with  a  fawn,  one  being  a  mule-deer 
and  the  other  a  whitetail.  On  another  occasion,  on  an 
early  spring  afternoon,  just  before  the  fawns  were  born, 
I  came  upon  a  herd  of  twenty  whitetails,  does,  and  young 
of  the  preceding  year,  grazing  greedily  on  the  young 
grass;  and  half  a  mile  up  the  creek,  in  an  almost  exactly 
similar  locality,  I  came  upon  just  such  a  herd  of  mule- 
deer.  In  each  case  the  animals  were  so  absorbed  in  the 
feasting,  which  was  to  make  up  for  their  winter  priva- 
tions, that  I  was  able  to  stalk  to  within  fifty  yards,  though 
of  course  I  did  not  shoot. 
*•*,  In  northwestern  Colorado  the  conditions  are  entirely 


THE    MULE-DEER  233 

different.  Throughout  this  region  there  are  no  whitetail 
and  never  have  been,  although  in  the  winter  range  of 
the  mule-deer  there  are  a  few  prongbuck;  and  the  wapiti 
once  abounded.  The  mule-deer  are  still  plentiful.  They 
make  a  complete  migration  summer  and  winter,  so  that 
in  neither  season  is  a  single  individual  to  be  found  in 
the  haunts  they  frequent  during  the  other  season.  In 
the  summer  they  live  and  bring  forth  their  young  high  up 
in  the  main  chain  of  the  mountains,  in  a  beautiful  country 
of  northern  forest  growth,  dotted  with  trout-filled  brooks 
and  clear  lakes.  The  snowfall  is  so  deep  in  these  wooded 
mountains  that  the  deer  would  run  great  risk  of  perish- 
ing if  they  stayed  therein,  and  indeed  could  only  winter 
there  at  all  in  very  small  numbers.  Accordingly,  when 
the  storms  begin  in  the  fall,  usually  about  the  first  of 
October,  just  before  the  rut,  the  deer  assemble  in  bands 
and  move  west  and  south  to  the  lower,  drier  country, 
where  the  rugged  hills  are  here  and  there  clothed  with 
an  open  growth  of  pinyon  and  cedar,  instead  of  the  tall 
spruces  and  pines  of  the  summer  range.  The  migrating 
bands  follow  one  another  along  definite  trails  over  moun- 
tains, through  passes  and  valleys,  and  across  streams;  and 
their  winter  range  swarms  with  them  a  few  days  after 
the  forerunners  have  put  in  their  appearance  in  what  has 
been,  during  the  summer,  an  absolutely  deerless  country. 
In  January  and  February,  1901,  I  spent  five  weeks 
north  of  the  White  River,  in  northwestern  Colorado.  It 
was  in  the  heart  of  the  wintering  ground  of  the  great 
Colorado  mule-deer  herd.  Forty  miles  away  to  the  east, 
extending  north,  lay  the  high  mountains  in  which  these 


234  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

deer  had  spent  the  summer.  The  winter  range,  in  which 
I  was  at  the  time  hunting  cougars,  is  a  region  of  com- 
paratively light  snowfall,  though  the  cold  is  bitter.  On 
several  occasions  during  my  stay  the  thermometer  went 
down  to  twenty  degrees  below  zero.  The  hills,  or  low 
mountains,  for  it  was  difficult  to  know  which  to  call 
them,  were  steep  and  broken,  and  separated  by  narrow 
flats  covered  with  sage-brush.  The  ordinary  trees  were 
the  pinyon  and  cedar,  which  were  scattered  in  rather 
open  groves  over  the  mountain-sides  and  the  spurs  be- 
tween the  ravines.  There  were  also  patches  of  quaking 
asp,  scrub  oak,  and  brush.  The  entire  country  was  thinly 
covered  with  ranches,  and  there  were  huge  pastures  en- 
closed by  wire  fences.  I  have  never  seen  the  mule-deer 
so  numerous  anywhere  as  they  were  in  this  country  at 
this  time;  although  in  1883,  on  the  Little  Missouri,  they 
were  almost  as  plentiful.  There  was  not  a  day  we  did 
not  see  scores,  and  on  some  days  we  saw  hundreds.  Fre- 
quently they  were  found  in  small  parties  of  two  or  three, 
or  a  dozen  individuals,  but  on  occasions  we  saw  bands 
of  thirty  or  forty.  Only  rarely  were  they  found  singly. 
The  fawns  were  of  course  well  grown,  being  eight  or 
nine  months  old,  and  long  out  of  the  spotted  coat.  They 
were  still  accompanying  their  mothers.  Ordinarily  a 
herd  would  consist  of  does,  fawns,  and  yearlings,  the 
latter  carrying  their  first  antlers.  But  it  was  not  pos- 
sible to  lay  down  a  universal  rule.  Again  and  again 
I  saw  herds  in  which  there  were  one  or  two  full-grown 
bucks  associating  with  the  females  and  younger  deer. 
At  other  times  we  came  across  small  bands  of  full- 


THE    MULE-DEER 


235 


grown  bucks  by  themselves,  and  occasionally  a  solitary 
buck.  Considering  the  extent  to  which  these  deer  must 
have  been  persecuted,  I  did  not  think  them  shy.  We 
were  hunting  on  horseback,  and  had  hounds  with  us,  so 
we  made  no  especial  attempt  to  avoid  noise.  Yet  very 
frequently  we  would  come  close  on  the  deer  before  they 
took  alarm;  and  even  when  alarmed  they  would  some- 
times trot  slowly  off,  halting  and  looking  back.  On  one 
occasion,  in  some  bad  lands,  we  came  upon  four  bucks 
which  had  been  sunning  themselves  on  the  face  of  a  clay 
wall.  They  jumped  up  and  went  off  one  at  a  time,  very 
slowly,  passing  diagonally  by  us,  certainly  not  over 
seventy  yards  off.  All  four  could  have  been  shot  with- 
out effort,  and  as  they  had  fine  antlers  I  should  certainly 
have  killed  one,  had  it  been  the  open  season. 

When  we  came  on  these  Colorado  mule-deer  sud- 
denly, they  generally  behaved  exactly  as  their  brethren 
used  to  in  the  old  days  on  the  Little  Missouri;  that  is, 
they  would  run  off  at  a  good  speed  for  a  hundred  yards 
or  so,  then  slow  up,  halt,  gaze  inquisitively  at  us  for 
some  seconds,  and  again  take  to  flight.  While  the  sun 
was  strong  they  liked  to  lie  out  in  the  low  brush  on 
slopes  where  they  would  get  the  full  benefit  of  the  heat. 
During  the  heavy  snowstorms  they  usually  retreated  into 
some  ravine  where  the  trees  grew  thicker  than  usual,  not 
stirring  until  the  weight  of  the  storm  was  over.  Most 
of  the  night,  especially  if  it  was  moonlight,  they  fed; 
but  they  were  not  at  all  regular  about  this.  I  frequently 
saw  them  standing  up  and  grazing,  or  more  rarely  brows- 
ing, in  the  middle  of  the  day,  and  in  the  late  afternoon 


236  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

they  often  came  down  to  graze  on  the  flats  within  view 
of  the  different  ranch-houses  where  I  happened  to  stop. 
The  hours  for  feeding  and  resting,  however,  always  vary 
accordingly  as  the  deer  are  or  are  not  persecuted.  In 
wild  localities  I  have  again  and  again  found  these  deer 
grazing  at  all  hours  of  the  day,  and  coming  to  water 
at  high  noon;  whereas,  where  they  have  been  much  per- 
secuted, they  only  begin  to  feed  after  dusk,  and  come  to 
water  after  dark.  Of  course  during  this  winter  weather 
they  could  get  no  water,  snow  supplying  its  place. 

I  was  immensely  interested  with  the  way  they  got 
through  the  wire  fences.  A  mule-deer  is  a  great  jumper; 
I  have  known  them  to  clear  with  ease  high  timber  corral 
fences  surrounding  hayricks.  If  the  animals  had  chosen, 
they  could  have  jumped  any  of  the  wire  fences  I  saw; 
yet  never  in  a  single  instance  did  I  see  one  of  them  so 
jump  a  fence,  nor  did  I  ever  find  in  the  tell-tale  snow 
tracks  which  indicated  their  having  done  so.  They  paid 
no  heed  whatever  to  the  fences,  so  far  as  I  could  see,  and 
went  through  them  at  will ;  but  they  always  got  between 
the  wires,  or  went  under  the  lowest  wire.  The  dexterity 
with  which  they  did  this  was  extraordinary.  When 
alarmed  they  would  run  full  speed  toward  a  wire  fence, 
would  pass  through  it,  often  hardly  altering  their  stride, 
and  never  making  any  marks  in  the  snow  which  looked 
as  though  they  had  crawled.  Twice  I  saw  bands  thus 
go  through  a  wire  fence,  once  at  speed,  the  other  time 
when  they  were  not  alarmed.  On  both  occasions  they 
were  too  far  off  to  allow  me  to  see  exactly  their  mode 
of  procedure,  but  on  examining  the  snow  where  they  had 


THE   MULE-DEER  237 

passed,  there  was  not  the  slightest  mark  of  their  bodies, 
and  the  alteration  in  their  gait,  as  shown  by  the  footprints, 
was  hardly  perceptible.  In  one  instance,  however,  where 
I  scared  a  young  buck  which  ran  over  a  hill  and  through 
a  wire  fence  on  the  other  side,  I  found  one  of  his  antlers 
lying  beside  the  fence,  it  having  evidently  been  knocked 
off  by  the  wire.  Their  antlers  were  getting  very  loose, 
and  toward  the  end  of  our  stay  they  had  begun  to  shed 
them. 

The  deer  were  preyed  on  by  many  foes.  Sportsmen 
and  hide-hunters  had  been  busy  during  the  fall  migra- 
tions, and  the  ranchmen  of  the  neighborhood  were  shoot- 
ing them  occasionally  for  food,  even  when  we  were 
out  there.  The  cougars  at  this  season  were  preying  upon 
them  practically  to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else.  We 
came  upon  one  large  fawn  which  had  been  killed  by  a 
bobcat.  The  gray  wolves  were  also  preying  upon  them. 
A  party  of  these  wolves  can  sometimes  run  down  even 
an  unwounded  blacktail;  I  have  myself  known  of  their 
performing  this  feat.  Twice  on  this  very  hunt  we  came 
across  the  carcasses  of  blacktail  which  had  thus  been 
killed  by  wolves,  and  one  of  the  cow-punchers  at  a  ranch 
where  we  were  staying  came  in  and  reported  to  us  that 
while  riding  among  the  cattle  that  afternoon  he  had  seen 
two  coyotes  run  a  young  mule-deer  to  a  standstill,  and 
they  would  without  doubt  have  killed  it  had  they  not 
been  frightened  by  his  approach.  Still  the  wolf  is  very 
much  less  successful  than  the  cougar  in  killing  these  deer, 
and  even  the  cougar  continually  fails  in  his  stalks.  But 
the  deer  were  so  plentiful  that  at  this  time  all  the  cougars 


238  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

we  killed  were  very  fat,  and  evidently  had  no  difficulty 
in  getting  as  much  venison  as  they  needed.  The  wolves 
were  not  as  well  off,  and  now  and  then  made  forays  on 
the  young  stock  of  the  ranchmen,  which  at  this  season 
the  cougar  let  alone,  reserving  his  attention  to  them  for 
the  summer  season  when  the  deer  had  vanished. 

In  the  Big  Horn  Mountains,  where  I  also  saw  a  good 
deal  of  the  mule-deer,  their  habits  were  intermediate 
between  those  of  the  species  that  dwell  on  the  plains  and 
those  that  dwell  in  the  densely  timbered  regions  of  the 
Rockies  farther  to  the  northwest.  In  the  summer  time 
they  lived  high  up  on  the  plateaus  of  the  Big  Horn,  some- 
times feeding  in  the  open  glades  and  sometimes  in  the 
pine  forests.  In  the  fall  they  browsed  on  certain  of  the 
bushes  almost  exclusively.  In  winter  they  came  down 
into  the  low  country.  South  of  the  Yellowstone  Park, 
where  the  wapiti  swarmed,  the  mule-deer  were  not  nu- 
merous. I  believe  that  by  choice  they  prefer  rugged,  open 
country,  and  they  certainly  care  comparatively  little  for 
bad  weather,  as  they  will  often  visit  bleak,  wind-swept 
ridges  in  midwinter,  as  being  places  where  they  can  best 
get  food  at  that  season,  when  the  snow  lies  deep  in  the 
sheltered  places.  Nevertheless,  many  of  the  species  pass 
their  whole  life  in  thick  timber. 

My  chief  opportunities  for  observing  the  mule-deer 
were  in  the  eighties,  when  I  spent  much  of  my  time  on 
my  ranch  on  the  Little  Missouri.  Mule-deer  were  then 
very  plentiful,  and  I  killed  more  of  them  than  of  all 
other  game  put  together.  At  that  time  in  the  cattle  coun- 
try no  ranchman  ever  thought  of  killing  beef,  and  if 


£*•."•'  >;  "  -*t •""*••••         Ite, 


-"<.«•£; 

; 


THE    MULE-DEER  239 

we  had  fresh  meat  at  all  it  was  ordinarily  venison.  In 
the  fall  we  usually  tried  to  kill  enough  deer  to  last  out  the 
winter.  Until  the  settlers  came  in,  the  Little  Missouri 
country  was  an  ideal  range  for  mule-deer,  and  they  fairly 
swarmed;  while  elk  were  also  plentiful,  and  the  restless 
herds  of  the  buffalo  surged  at  intervals  through  the  land. 
After  1882  and  1883  the  buffalo  and  elk  were  killed  out, 
the  former  completely,  and  the  latter  practically,  and 
by  that  time  the  skin-hunters,  and  then  the  ranchers, 
turned  their  attention  chiefly  to  the  mule-deer.  It  lived 
in  open  country  where  there  was  cover  for  the  stalker, 
and  so  it  was  much  easier  to  kill  than  either  the  whitetail, 
which  was  found  in  the  dense  cover  of  the  river  bottoms, 
or  the  prongbuck,  which  was  found  far  back  from  the 
river,  on  the  flat  prairies  where  there  was  no  cover  at 
all.  I  have  been  informed  of  other  localities  in  which 
the  antelope  has  disappeared  long  before  the  mule-deer, 
and  I  believe  that  in  the  Rockies  the  mule-deer  has  a 
far  better  chance  of  survival  than  the  antelope  has  on 
the  plains;  but  on  the  Little  Missouri  the  antelope  con- 
tinued plentiful  long  after  the  mule-deer  had  become 
decidedly  scarce.  In  1886  I  think  the  antelope  were 
fully  as  abundant  as  ever  they  were,  while  the  mule-deer 
had  wofully  diminished.  In  the  early  nineties  there  were 
still  regions  within  thirty  or  forty  miles  of  my  ranch 
where  the  antelope  were  very  plentiful — far  more  so  than 
the  mule-deer  were  at  that  time.  Now  they  are  both 
scarce  along  the  Little  Missouri,  and  which  will  outlast 
the  other  I  cannot  say. 

In  the  old  days,  as  I  have  already  said,  it  was  by  no 


24o  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

means  infrequent  to  see  both  the  whitetail  and  the  mule- 
deer  close  together,  and  when,  under  such  circumstances, 
they  were  alarmed,  one  got  a  clear  idea  of  the  extraor- 
dinary gait  which  is  the  mule-deer's  most  striking  char- 
acteristic. It  trots  well,  gallops  if  hard  pressed,  and  is 
a  good  climber,  though  much  inferior  to  the  mountain 
sheep.  But  its  normal  gait  consists  of  a  series  of  stiff- 
legged  bounds,  all  four  feet  leaving  and  striking  the 
ground  at  the  same  time.  This  gait  differs  more  from 
the  gait  of  bighorn,  prongbuck,  whitetail,  and  wapiti 
than  the  gaits  of  these  latter  animals  differ  among  them- 
selves. The  wapiti,  for  instance,  rarely  gallops,  but  when 
he  does,  it  is  a  gallop  of  the  ordinary  type.  The  prong- 
buck  runs  with  a  singularly  even  gait;  whereas  the  white- 
tail  makes  great  bounds,  some  much  higher  than  others. 
But  fundamentally  in  all  cases  the  action  is  the  same, 
and  has  no  resemblance  to  the  stiff-legged  buck  jumping 
which  is  the  ordinary  means  of  progression  of  the  mule- 
deer.  These  jumps  carry  it  not  only  on  the  level,  but 
up  and  down  hill  at  a  great  speed.  It  is  said  to  be  a  tire- 
some gait  for  the  animal,  if  hunted  for  any  length  of 
time  on  the  level;  but  of  this  I  cannot  speak  with  full 
knowledge. 

Compared  to  the  wapiti,  the  mule-deer,  like  our  other 
small  deer,  is  a  very  silent  animal.  For  a  long  time  I 
believed  it  uttered  no  sound  beyond  the  snort  of  alarm 
and  the  rare  bleat  of  the  doe  to  her  fawn;  but  one  after- 
noon I  heard  two  bucks  grunting  or  barking  at  one  an- 
other in  a  ravine  back  of  the  ranch-house,  and  crept  up 
and  shot  them.  I  was  still  uncertain  whether  this  was 


THE    MULE-DEER 


241 


an  indication  of  a  regular  habit;  but  a  couple  of  years 
later,  on  a  moonlight  night  just  after  sunset,  I  heard  a 
big  buck  travelling  down  a  ravine  and  continually  bark- 
ing, evidently  as  a  love  challenge.  I  have  been  informed 
by  some  hunters  that  the  bucks  at  the  time  of  the  rut 
not  infrequently  thus  grunt  and  bark;  but  most  hunters 
are  ignorant  of  this  habit;  and  it  is  certainly  not  a  com- 
mon practice. 

The  species  is  not  nearly  as  gregarious  as  the  wapiti 
or  caribou.  During  the  winter  the  bucks  are  generally 
found  singly,  or  in  small  parties  by  themselves,  although 
occasionally  one  will  associate  with  a  party  of  does  and  of 
young  deer.  When  in  May  or  June — for  the  exact  time 
varies  with  the  locality — the  doe  brings  forth  her  young, 
she  retires  to  some  lonely  thicket.  Sometimes  one  and 
sometimes  two  fawns  are  brought  forth.  They  lie  very 
close  for  the  first  few  days.  I  have  picked  them  up  and 
handled  them  without  their  making  the  slightest  effort  to 
escape,  while  the  mother  hung  about  a  few  hundred 
yards  off.  On  one  occasion  I  by  accident  surprised  a 
doe  in  the  very  act  of  giving  birth  to  two  fawns.  One 
had  just  been  born  and  the  other  was  born  as  the  doe 
made  her  first  leap  away.  She  ran  off  with  as  much 
speed  and  unconcern  as  if  nothing  whatever  had  hap- 
pened. I  passed  on  immediately,  lest  she  should  be  sb 
frightened  as  not  to  come  back  to  the  fawns.  It  has  hap- 
pened that  where  I  have  found  the  newly  born  fawns  I 
have  invariably  found  the  doe  to  be  entirely  alone,  but 
her  young  of  the  previous  year  must  sometimes  at  least 
be  in  the  neighborhood,  for  a  little  later  I  have  frequently 


242  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

seen  the  doe  and  her  fawn  or  fawns,  and  either  one  or  two 
young  of  the  previous  year,  together.  Often,  however, 
these  young  deer  will  be  alone,  or  associated  with  an  older 
doe  which  is  barren.  The  bucks  at  the  same  time  go  to 
secluded  places;  sometimes  singly,  while  sometimes  an 
old  buck  will  be  accompanied  by  a  younger  one,  or  a 
couple  of  old  bucks  will  lie  together.  They  move  about 
as  little  as  possible  while  their  horns  are  growing,  and 
if  a  hunter  comes  by,  they  will  lie  far  closer  than  at  any 
other  time  of  the  year,  squatting  in  the  dense  thickets 
as  if  they  were  whitetails. 

When  in  the  Bad  Lands  of  the  Western  Dakotas  the 
late  September  breezes  grow  cold,  then  the  bucks,  their 
horns  already  clean  of  velvet  which  they  have  thrashed  off 
on  the  bushes  and  saplings,  feel  their  necks  begin  to  swell ; 
and  early  in  October — sometimes  not  until  November — 
they  seek  the  does.  The  latter,  especially  the  younger 
ones,  at  first  flee  in  frantic  haste.  As  the  rut  goes  on  the 
bucks  become  ever  bolder  and  more  ardent.  Not  only 
do  they  chase  the  does  by  night,  but  also  by  day.  I  have 
sat  on  the  side  of  a  ravine  in  the  Bad  Lands  at  noon 
and  seen  a  young  doe  race  past  me  as  if  followed  by  a 
wolf.  When  she  was  out  of  sight  a  big  buck  appeared 
on  her  trail,  following  it  by  scent,  also  at  speed.  When 
he  had  passed  I  .got  up,  and  the  motion  frightened  a 
younger  buck  which  was  following  two  or  three  hundred 
yards  in  the  rear  of  the  big  one.  After  a  while  the  doe 
yields,  and  the  buck  then  accompanies  her.  If,  however, 
it  is  early  in  the  season,  he  may  leave  her  entirely  in 
order  to  run  after  another  doe.  Later  in  the  season  he 


THE    MULE-DEER  243 

will  have  a  better  chance  of  adding  the  second  doe  to  his 
harem,  or  of  robbing  another  buck  of  the  doe  or  does 
which  he  has  accumulated.  I  have  often  seen  merely 
one  doe  and  one  buck  together,  and  I  have  often  seen  a 
single  doe  which  for  several  days  was  accompanied  by 
several  bucks,  one  keeping  off  the  others.  But  generally 
the  biggest  bucks  collect  each  for  himself  several  does, 
yearlings  also  being  allowed  in  the  band.  The  exact 
amount  of  companionship  with  the  does  allowed  these 
young  bucks  depends  somewhat  upon  the  temper  of  the 
master  buck.  In  books  by  imperfectly  informed  writers 
we  often  see  allusions  to  the  buck  as  protecting  the 
doe,  or  even  taking  care  of  the  fawn.  Charles  Dudley 
Warner,  for  instance,  in  describing  with  great  skill  and 
pathos  an  imaginary  deer  hunt,  after  portraying  the  death 
of  the  doe,  portrays  the  young  fawn  as  following  the  buck 
when  the  latter  comes  back  to  it  in  the  evening.1  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  while  the  fawn  is  so  young  as  to  be  wholly 
dependent  upon  the  doe,  the  buck  never  comes  near 
either.  Moreover,  during  the  period  when  the  buck  and 
the  doe  are  together,  the  buck's  attitude  is  merely  that  of 
a  brutal,  greedy,  and  selfish  tyrant.  He  will  unhesitat- 
ingly rob  the  doe  of  any  choice  bit  of  food,  and  though 
he  will  fight  to  keep  her  if  another  buck  approaches,  the 
moment  that  a  dangerous  foe  appears  his  one  thought  is 
for  his  own  preservation.  He  will  not  only  desert  the 
doe,  but  if  he  is  an  old  and  cunning  buck,  he  will  try  his 

1  While  the  situation  thus  described  was  an  impossible  one,  the  purpose  of 
Mr.  Warner's  article  was  excellent,  it  being  intended  as  a  protest  against  hunt- 
ing deer  while  the  fawns  are  young,  and  against  killing  them  in  the  water. 


244  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

best  to  sacrifice  her  by  diverting  the  attention  of  the  pur- 
suer to  her  and  away  from  him. 

By  the  end  of  the  rut  the  old  bucks  are  often  ex- 
hausted, their  sides  are  thin,  their  necks  swollen;  though 
they  are  never  as  gaunt  as  wapiti  bulls  at  this  time.  They 
then  rest  as  much  as  possible,  feeding  all  the  time  to  put 
on  fat  before  winter  arrives,  and  rapidly  attaining  a  very 
high  condition. 

Except  in  dire  need  no  one  would  kill  a  deer  after 
the  hard  weather  of  winter  begins  or  before  the  antlers 
of  the  buck  are  full-grown  and  the  fawns  are  out  of  the 
spotted  coat.  Even  in  the  old  days  we,  who  lived  in  the 
ranch  country,  always  tried  to  avoid  killing  deer  in  the 
spring  or  early  summer,  though  we  often  shot  buck  ante- 
lope at  those  times.  The  close  season  for  deer  varies  in 
different  States,  and  now  there  is  generally  a  limit  set  to 
the  number  any  one  hunter  can  kill ;  for  the  old  days  of 
wasteful  plenty  are  gone  forever. 

To  my  mind  there  is  a  peculiar  fascination  in  hunt- 
ing the  mule-deer.  By  the  time  the  hunting  season  has 
arrived  the  buck  is  no  longer  the  slinking  beast  of  the 
thicket,  but  a  bold  and  yet  wary  dweller  in  the  up- 
lands. Frequently  he  can  be  found  clear  of  all  cover, 
often  at  midday,  and  his  habits  at  this  season  are,  from 
the  hunter's  standpoint,  rather  more  like  those  of  the 
wapiti  than  of  the  whitetail;  but  each  band,  though  con- 
tinually shifting  its  exact  position,  stays  permanently 
in  the  same  tract  of  country,  whereas  wapiti  are  apt  to 
wander. 

In  the  old  days,  when  mule-deer  were  plentiful  in 


THE    MULE-DEER  245 

country  through  which  a  horse  could  go  at  a  fair  rate 
of  speed,  it  was  common  for  the  hunter  to  go  on  horse- 
back, and  not  to  dismount  save  at  the  moment  of  the 
shot.  In  the  early  eighties,  while  on  my  ranch  on  the 
Little  Missouri,  this  was  the  way  in  which  I  usually 
hunted.  When  I  first  established  my  ranch  I  often  went 
out,  in  the  fall,  after  the  day's  work  was  over,  and  killed 
a  deer  before  dark.  If  it  was  in  September,  I  would 
sometimes  start  after  supper.  Later  in  the  year  I  would 
take  supper  when  I  got  back.  Under  such  circumstances 
my  mode  of  procedure  was  simple.  Deer  were  plentiful. 
Every  big  tangle  of  hills,  every  set  of  grassy  coulees  wind- 
ing down  to  a  big  creek  bottom,  was  sure  to  contain  them. 
The  time  being  short,  with  at  most  only  an  hour  or  two 
of  light,  I  made  no  effort  to  find  the  tracks  of  a  deer 
or  to  spy  one  afar  off.  I  simply  rode  through  the  likely 
places,  across  the  heads  of  the  ravines  or  down  the  wind- 
ing valleys,  until  I  jumped  a  deer  close  enough  up  to  give 
me  a  shot.  The  unshod  hoofs  of  the  horse  made  but  lit- 
tle noise  as  he  shuffled  along  at  the  regular  cow-pony 
fox  trot,  and  I  kept  him  close  into  the  bank  or  behind 
cover,  so  as  to  come  around  each  successive  point  with- 
out warning.  If  the  ground  was  broken  and  rugged,  I 
made  no  attempt  to  go  fast.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  I 
struck  a  smooth  ravine  with  gentle  curves,  I  would  often 
put  the  pony  to  a  sharp  canter  or  gallop,  so  as  to  come 
quickly  on  any  deer  before  it  could  quite  make  up  its 
mind  what  course  was  best  to  follow.  Sooner  or  later, 
as  I  passed  a  thick  clump  of  young  ash  or  buck  brush, 
or  came  abruptly  around  a  sharp  bend,  there  would  be 


246  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

a  snort,  and  then  the  thud,  thud,  thud,  of  four  hoofs  strik- 
ing the  ground  exactly  in  unison,  and  away  would  go  a 
mule-deer  with  the  peculiar  bounding  motion  of  its  kind. 
The  pony,  well  accustomed  to  the  work,  stopped  short, 
and  I  was  off  its  back  in  an  instant.  If  the  deer  had 
not  made  out  exactly  what  I  was,  it  would  often  show 
by  its  gait  that  it  was  not  yet  prepared  to  run  straight 
out  of  sight.  Under  such  circumstances  I  would  wait 
until  it  stopped  and  turned  round  to  look  back.  If  it 
was  going  very  fast,  I  took  the  shot  running.  Once  I 
put  up  a  young  buck  from  some  thick  brush  in  the  bot- 
tom of  a  winding  washout.  I  leaped  off  the  pony,  stand- 
ing within  ten  yards  of  the  washout.  The  buck  went  up 
a  hill  on  my  left,  and  as  he  reached  the  top  and  paused 
for  a  second  on  the  sky-line,  I  fired.  At  the  shot  there 
was  a  great  scrambling  and  crashing  in  the  washout  be- 
low me,  and  another  and  larger  buck  came  out  and  tore 
off  in  frantic  haste.  I  fired  several  shots  at  him,  finally 
bringing  him  down.  Meanwhile,  the  other  buck  had 
disappeared,  but  there  was  blood  on  his  trail,  and  I  found 
him  lying  down  in  the  next  coulee,  and  finished  him. 
This  was  not  much  over  a  mile  from  the  ranch-house, 
and  after  dressing  the  deer,  I  put  one  behind  the  saddle 
and  one  on  it,  and  led  the  pony  home. 

Such  hunting,  though  great  fun,  does  not  imply  any 
particular  skill  either  in  horsemanship,  marksmanship,  or 
plainscraft  and  knowledge  of  the  animal's  habits;  and 
it  can  of  course  be  followed  only  where  the  game  is  very 
plentiful.  Ordinarily  the  mule-deer  must  be  killed  by 
long  tramping  among  the  hills,  skilful  stalking,  and  good 


THE    MULE-DEER  247 

shooting.  The  successful  hunter  should  possess  good  eyes, 
good  wind,  and  good  muscles.  He  should  know  how  to 
take  cover  and  how  to  use  his  rifle.  The  work  is  suf- 
ficiently rough  to  test  any  man's  endurance,  and  yet  there 
is  no  such  severe  and  intense  toil  as  in  following  true 
mountain  game,  like  the  bighorn  or  white  goat.  As  the 
hunter's  one  aim  is  to  see  the  deer  before  it  sees  him, 
he  can  only  use  the  horse  to  take  him  to  the  hunting- 
ground.  Then  he  must  go  through  the  most  likely 
ground  and  from  every  point  of  vantage  scan  with  mi- 
nute care  the  landscape  round  about,  while  himself  un- 
seen. If  the  country  is  wild  and  the  deer  have  not  been 
much  molested,  he  will  be  apt  to  come  across  a  band 
that  is  feeding.  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  easy  to 
see  them  at  once.  But  if  lying  down,  it  is  astonishing 
how  the  gray  of  their  winter  coats  fits  in  with  the  color 
of  their  surroundings.  Too  often  I  have  looked  carefully 
over  a  valley  with  my  glasses  until,  thinking  I  had 
searched  every  nook,  I  have  risen  and  gone  forward,  only 
to  see  a  deer  rise  and  gallop  off  out  of  range  from  some 
spot  which  I  certainly  thought  I  had  examined  with  all 
possible  precaution.  If  the  hunter  is  not  himself  hidden, 
he  will  have  his  labor  for  his  pains.  Neither  the  mule- 
deer  nor  the  whitetail  is  by  any  means  as  keen-sighted  as 
the  pronghorn  antelope,  and  men  accustomed  chiefly  to 
antelope  shooting  are  quite  right  in  speaking  of  the  sight 
of  deer  as  poor  by  comparison.  But  this  is  only  by  com- 
parison. A  motionless  object  does  not  attract  the  deer's 
gaze  as  it  attracts  the  telescopic  eye  of  a  prongbuck;  but 
any  motion  is  seen  at  once,  and  as  soon  as  this  has  oc- 


248  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

curred,  the  chances  of  the  hunter  are  usually  at  an  end. 
On  the  other  hand,  from  the  nature  of  its  haunts  the  mule- 
deer  usually  offers  fairly  good  opportunities  for  stalking. 
It  is  not  as  big  or  as  valuable  as  the  elk,  and  therefore 
it  is  not  as  readily  seen  or  as  eagerly  followed,  and  in 
consequence  holds  its  own  better.  But  though  the  sport 
it  yields  calls  normally  for  a  greater  amount  of  hardihood 
and  endurance  in  the  hunter  than  is  the  case  with  the 
sport  yielded  by  the  prongbuck,  and  especially  by  the 
whitetail,  yet  when  existing  in  like  numbers  it  is  easier 
to  kill  than  either  of  these  two  animals. 

Sometimes  in  the  early  fall,  when  hunting  from  the 
ranch,  I  have  spent  the  night  in  some  likely  locality,  sleep- 
ing rolled  up  in  a  blanket  on  the  ground  so  as  to  be  ready 
to  start  at  the  first  streak  of  dawn.  On  one  such  occa- 
sion a  couple  of  mule-deer  came  to  where  my  horse  was 
picketed  just  before  I  got  up.  I  heard  them  snort  or 
whistle,  and  very  slowly  unwrapped  myself  from  the 
blanket,  turned  over,  and  crawled  out,  rifle  in  hand. 
Overhead  the  stars  were  paling  in  the  faint  gray  light, 
but  the  ravine  in  which  the  deer  were  was  still  so  black 
that,  watch  as  I  would,  I  could  not  see  them.  I  feared  to 
move  around  lest  I  might  disturb  them,  but  after  wig- 
gling toward  a  little  jutting  shoulder  I  lay  still  to  wait 
for  the  light.  They  went  off,  however,  while  it  was  still 
too  dusk  to  catch  more  than  their  dim  and  formless  out- 
lines, and  though  I  followed  them  as  rapidly  and  cau- 
tiously as  possible,  I  never  got  a  shot  at  them.  On  other 
occasions  fortune  has  favored  me,  and  before  the  sun  rose 
I  have  spied  some  buck  leisurely  seeking  his  day  bed, 


THE    MULE-DEER  249 

• 

and  have  been  able  either  to  waylay  him  or  make  a  run- 
ning stalk  on  him  from  behind. 

In  the  old  days  it  was  the  regular  thing  with  most 
ranchmen  to  take  a  trip  in  the  fall  for  the  purpose  of 
laying  in  the  winter's  supply  of  venison.  I  frequently 
took  such  trips  myself,  and  though  occasionally  we  killed 
wapiti,  bighorn,  prongbuck,  and  whitetail,  our  ordinary 
game  was  the  mule-deer.  Around  my  ranch  it  was  not 
necessary  to  go  very  far.  A  day's  journey  with  the  wagon 
would  usually  take  us  to  where  a  week's  hunting  would 
enable  us  to  return  with  a  dozen  deer  or  over.  If  there 
was  need  of  more,  I  would  repeat  the  hunt  later  on.  I 
have  several  times  killed  three  of  these  deer  in  a  day, 
but  I  do  not  now  recall  ever  killing  a  greater  number. 
It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  say  that  every  scrap  of  flesh 
was  used. 

These  hunts  were  always  made  late  in  the  fall,  usually 
after  the  close  of  the  rut.  The  deer  were  then  banded, 
and  were  commonly  found  in  parties  of  from  three  or 
four  to  a  score,  although  the  big  bucks  might  be  lying 
by  themselves.  The  weather  was  apt  to  be  cold,  and  the 
deer  evidently  liked  to  sun  themselves,  so  that  at  mid- 
day they  could  be  found  lying  sometimes  in  thin  brush 
and  sometimes  boldly  out  on  the  face  of  a  cliff  or  hill. 
If  they  were  unmolested,  they  would  feed  at  intervals 
throughout  the  day,  and  not  until  the  bands  had  been 
decimated  by  excessive  hunting  did  they  ever  spend  the 
hours  of  daylight  in  hiding. 

On  such  a  hunt  our  proceedings  were  simple.  The 
nights  were  longer  than  the  days,  and  therefore  we  were 


25° 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


away  from  camp  at  the  first  streak  of  dawn,  and  might 
not  return  until  long  after  darkness.  All  the  time  be- 
tween was  spent  in  climbing  and  walking  through  the 
rugged  hills,  keeping  a  sharp  lookout  for  our  game. 
Only  too  often  we  were  seen  before  we  ourselves  saw 
the  quarry,  and  even  when  this  was  not  the  case  the 
stalks  were  sometimes  failures.  Still  blank  days  were  not 
very  common.  Probably  every  hunter  remembers  with 
pride  some  particular  stalk.  I  recall  now  outwitting  a 
big  buck  which  I  had  seen  and  failed  to  get  on  two  suc- 
cessive days.  He  was  hanging  about  a  knot  of  hills  with 
brush  on  their  shoulders,  and  was  not  only  very  watchful, 
but  when  he  lay  down  always  made  his  bed  at  the  lower 
end  of  a  brush  patch,  whence  he  could  see  into  the  valley 
below,  while  it  was  impossible  to  approach  him  from 
above,  through  the  brush,  without  giving  the  alarm.  On 
the  third  day  I  saw  him  early  in  the  morning,  while  he 
was  feeding.  He  was  very  watchful,  and  I  made  no  at- 
tempt to  get  near  him,  simply  peeping  at  him  until  he 
finally  went  into  a  patch  of  thin  brush  and  lay  down. 
As  I  knew  what  he  was  I  could  distinctly  make  him  out. 
If  I  had  not  seen  him  go  in,  I  certainly  never  would  have 
imagined  that  he  was  a  deer,  even  had  my  eyes  been  able 
to  pick  him  out  at  all  among  the  gray  shadows  and  small 
dead  tree-tops.  Having  waited  until  he  was  well  settled 
down,  I  made  a  very  long  turn  and  came  up  behind  him, 
only  to  find  that  the  direction  of  the  wind  and  the  slope 
of  the  hill  rendered  it  an  absolute  impossibility  to  ap- 
proach him  unperceived.  After  careful  study  of  the 
ground  I  abandoned  the  effort,  and  returned  to  my  former 


THE   MULE-DEER 


251 


position,  having  spent  several  hours  of  considerable  labor 
in  vain.  It  was  now  about  noon,  and  I  thought  I  would 
lie  still  to  see  what  he  would  do  when  he  got  up,  and 
accordingly  I  ate  my  lunch  stretched  at  full  length  in 
the  long  grass  which  sheltered  me  from  the  wind.  From 
time  to  time  I  peered  cautiously  between  two  stones 
toward  where  the  buck  lay.  It  was  nearly  mid-afternoon 
before  he  moved.  Sometimes  mule-deer  rise  with  a  sin- 
gle motion,  all  four  legs  unbending  like  springs,  so  that 
the  four  hoofs  touch  the  ground  at  once.  This  old  buck, 
however,  got  up  very  slowly,  looked  about  for  certainly 
five  minutes,  and  then  came  directly  down  the  hill  and 
toward  me.  When  he  had  nearly  reached  the  bottom  of 
the  valley  between  us  he  turned  to  the  right  and  sauntered 
rapidly  down  it.  I  slipped  back  and  trotted  as  fast  as 
I  could  without  losing  my  breath  along  the  hither  side 
of  the  spur  which  lay  between  me  and  the  buck.  While 
I  was  out  of  sight  he  had  for  some  reason  made  up  his 
mind  to  hurry,  and  when  I  was  still  fifty  yards  from  the 
end  of  the  spur  he  came  in  sight  just  beyond  it,  passing 
at  a  swinging  trot.  I  dropped  on  one  knee  so  quickly 
that  for  a  moment  he  evidently  could  not  tell  what  I 
was — my  buckskin  shirt  and  gray  slouch-hat  fading  into 
the  color  of  the  background — and  halted,  looking  sharp- 
ly around.  Before  he  could  break  into  flight  my  bullet 
went  through  his  shoulders. 

Twice  I  have  killed  two  of  these  deer  at  a  shot;  once 
two  bucks,  and  once  a  doe  and  a  buck. 

It  has  proved  difficult  to  keep  the  mule-deer  in  cap- 
tivity, even  in  large  private  parks  or  roomy  zoological 


252  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

gardens.  I  think  this  is  because  hitherto  the  experiment 
has  been  tried  east  of  the  Mississippi  in  an  alien  habitat. 
The  wapiti  and  whitetail  are  species  that  are  at  home 
over  most  of  the  United  States,  East  and  West,  in  rank, 
wet  prairies,  dense  woodland,  and  dry  mountain  regions 
alike;  but  the  mule-deer  has  a  far  more  sharply  localized 
distribution.  In  the  Bronx  Zoological  Gardens,  in  New 
York,  Mr.  Hornaday  informs  me  that  he  has  compara- 
tively little  difficulty  in  keeping  up  the  stock  alike  of 
wapiti  and  whitetail  by  breeding — as  indeed  any  visitor 
can  see  for  himself.  The  same  is  true  in  the  game  pre- 
serves in  the  wilder  regions  of  New  York  and  New  Eng- 
land ;  but  hitherto  the  mule-deer  has  offered  an  even  more 
difficult  problem  in  captivity  than  the  pronghorn  ante- 
lope. Doubtless  the  difficulty  would  be  minimized  if 
the  effort  at  domestication  were  made  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

The  true  way  to  preserve  the  mule-deer,  however, 
as  well  as  our  other  game,  is  to  establish  on  the  nation's 
property  great  nurseries  and  wintering  grounds,  such  as 
the  Yellowstone  Park,  and  then  to  secure  fair  play  for 
the  deer  outside  these  grounds  by  a  wisely  planned  and 
faithfully  executed  series  of  game  laws.  This  is  the 
really  democratic  method  of  solving  the  problem.  Oc- 
casionally even  yet  some  one  will  assert  that  the  game 
"  belongs  to  the  people,  and  should  be  given  over  to 
them  " — meaning,  thereby,  that  there  should  be  no  game 
laws,  and  that  every  man  should  be  at  liberty  indiscrimi- 
nately to  kill  every  kind  of  wild  animal,  harmless,  useless, 
or  noxious,  until  the  day  when  our  woods  become  wholly 


THE   MULE-DEER 


2S3 


bereft  of  all  the  forms  of  higher  animal  life.  Such  an 
argument  can  only  be  made  from  the  standpoint  of  those 
big  game  dealers  in  the  cities  who  care  nothing  for  the 
future,  and  desire  to  make  money  at  the  present  day  by 
a  slaughter  which  in  the  last  analysis  only  benefits  the 
wealthy  people  who  are  able  to  pay  for  the  game;  for 
once  the  game  has  been  destroyed,  the  livelihood  of  the 
professional  gunner  will  be  taken  away.  Most  emphati- 
cally wild  game  not  on  'private  property  does  belong  to 
the  people,  and  the  only  way  in  which  the  people  can 
secure  their  ownership  is  by  protecting  it  in  the  interest 
of  all  against  the  vandal  few.  As  we  grow  older  I  think 
most  of  us  become  less  keen  about  that  part  of  the  hunt 
which  consists  in  the  killing.  I  know  that  as  far  as  I 
am  concerned  I  have  long  gone  past  the  stage  when  the 
chief  end  of  a  hunting  trip  was  the  bag.  One  or  two 
bucks,  or  enough  grouse  and  trout  to  keep  the  camp  sup- 
plied, will  furnish  all  the  sport  necessary  to  give  zest 
and  point  to  a  trip  in  the  wilderness.  When  hunters 
proceed  on  such  a  plan  they  do  practically  no  damage 
to  the  game.  Those  who  are  not  willing  to  act  along  these 
lines  of  their  own  free  will,  should  be  made  to  by  the 
State.  The  people  of  Montana,  Wyoming,  and  Colorado, 
and  of  the  States  near  by,  can  do  a  real  service,  primarily 
to  themselves,  but  secondarily  to  others  also,  by  framing 
and  executing  laws  which  will  keep  these  noble  deer  as 
permanent  denizens  of  their  lofty  mountains  and  beauti- 
ful valleys.  There  are  other  things  much  more  impor- 
tant than  game  laws;  but  it  will  be  a  great  mistake  to 
imagine,  because  until  recently  in  Europe  game  laws  have 


254  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

been  administered  in  the  selfish  interest  of  one  class  and 
against  the  interest  of  the  people  as  a  whole,  that  here 
in  this  country,  and  under  our  institutions,  they  would 
not  be  beneficial  to  all  of  our  people.  So  far  from  game 
laws  being  in  the  interest  of  the  few,  they  are  emphatically 
in  the  interest  of  the  many.  The  very  rich  man  can  stock 
a  private  game  preserve,  or  journey  afar  off  to  where 
game  is  still  plentiful;  but  it  is  only  where  the  game 
is  carefully  preserved  by  the  State  that  the  man  of  small 
means  has  any  chance  to  enjoy  the  keen  delight  of  the 
chase. 

There  are  many  sides  to  the  charm  of  big  game  hunt- 
ing; nor  should  it  be  regarded  as  being  without  its  solid 
advantages  from  the  standpoint  of  national  character. 
Always  in  our  modern  life,  the  life  of  a  highly  complex 
industrialism,  there  is  a  tendency  to  softening  of  fibre. 
This  is  true  of  our  enjoyments;  and  it  is  no  less  true  of 
very  many  of  our  business  occupations.  It  is  not  true 
of  such  work  as  railroading,  a  purely  modern  develop- 
ment, nor  yet  of  work  like  that  of  those  who  man  the 
fishing  fleets;  but  it  is  preeminently  true  of  all  occupa- 
tions which  cause  men  to  lead  sedentary  lives  in  great 
cities.  For  these  men  it  is  especially  necessary  to  provide 
hard  and  rough  play.  Of  course,  if  such  play  is  made 
a  serious  business,  the  result  is  very  bad;  but  this  does 
not  in  the  least  affect  the  fact  that  within  proper  limits 
the  play  itself  is  good.  Vigorous  athletic  sports  carried 
on  in  a  sane  spirit  are  healthy.  The  hardy  out-of-door 
sports  of  the  wilderness  are  even  healthier.  It  is  a  mere 
truism  to  say  that  the  qualities  developed  by  the  hunter 


THE    MULE-DEER  255 

are  the  qualities  needed  by  the  soldier;  and  a  curious 
feature  of  the  changed  conditions  of  modern  warfare  is 
that  they  call,  to  a  much  greater  extent  than  during  the 
two  or  three  centuries  immediately  past,  for  the  very 
qualities  of  individual  initiative,  ability  to  live  and  work 
in  the  open,  and  personal  skill  in  the  management  of 
horse  and  weapons,  which  are  fostered  by  a  hunter's  life. 
No  training  in  the  barracks  or  on  the  parade-ground  is 
as  good  as  the  training  given  by  a  hard  hunting  trip  in 
which  a  man  really  does  the  work  for  himself,  learns  to 
face  emergencies,  to  study  country,  to  perform  feats  of 
hardihood,  to  face  exposure  and  undergo  severe  labor. 
It  is  an  excellent  thing  for  any  man  to  be  a  good  horse- 
man and  a  good  marksman,  to  be  bold  and  hardy,  and 
wonted  to  feats  of  strength  and  endurance,  to  be  able  to 
live  in  the  open,  and  to  feel  a  self-reliant  readiness  in  any 
crisis.  Big  game  hunting  tends  to  produce  or  develop 
exactly  these  physical  and  moral  traits.  To  say  that  it 
may  be  pursued  in  a  manner  or  to  an  extent  which  is 
demoralizing,  is  but  to  say  what  can  likewise  be  said  of 
all  other  pastimes  and  of  almost  all  kinds  of  serious  busi- 
ness. That  it  can  be  abused  either  in  the  way  in  which 
it  is  done,  or  the  extent  to  which  it  is  carried,  does  not 
alter  the  fact  that  it  is  in  itself  a  sane  and  healthy  rec- 
reation. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  WAPITI,  OR  ROUND-HORNED  ELK 

THE  wapiti  is  the  largest  and  stateliest  deer  in  the 
world.  A  full-grown  bull  is  as  big  as  a  steer.  The  ant- 
lers are  the  most  magnificent  trophies  yielded  by  any 
game  animal  of  America,  save  the  giant  Alaskan  moose. 
When  full  grown  they  are  normally  of  twelve  tines ;  fre- 
quently the  tines  are  more  numerous,  but  the  increase  in 
their  number  has  no  necessary  accompaniment  in  increase 
in  the  size  of  the  antlers.  The  length,  massiveness,  rough- 
ness, spread,  and  symmetry  of  the  antlers  must  all  be 
taken  into  account  in  rating  the  value  of  a  head.  Antlers 
over  fifty  inches  in  length  are  large;  if  over  sixty,  they 
are  gigantic.  Good  heads  are  getting  steadily  rarer  under 
the  persecution  which  has  thinned  out  the  herds. 

Next  to  the  bison  the  wapiti  is  of  all  the  big  game 
animals  of  North  America  the  one  whose  range  has 
most  decreased.  Originally  it  was  found  from  the  Pacific 
coast  east  across  the  Alleghanies,  through  New  York  to 
the  Adirondacks,  through  Pennsylvania  into  western 
New  Jersey,  and  far  down  into  the  mid-country  of  Vir- 
ginia and  the  Carolinas.  It  extended  northward  into 
Canada,  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  Vancouver;  and  south- 
ward into  Mexico,  along  the  Rockies.  Its  range  thus 
corresponded  roughly  with  that  of  the  bison,  except  that 

it  went  farther  west  and  not  so  far  north.    In  the  early 

256 


THE   WAPITI 


257 


colonial  days  so  little  heed  was  paid  by  writers  to  the 
teeming  myriads  of  game  that  it  is  difficult  to  trace  the 
wapiti's  distribution  in  the  Atlantic  coast  region.  It  was 
certainly  killed  out  of  the  Adirondacks  long  before  the 
period  when  the  backwoodsmen  were  settling  the  val- 
leys of  the  Alleghany  Mountains;  there  they  found  the 
elk  abundant,  and  the  stately  creatures  roamed  in  great 
bands  over  Tennessee,  Kentucky,  Ohio,  and  Indiana 
when  the  first  settlers  made  their  way  into  what  are  now 
these  States,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution.  These 
first  settlers  were  all  hunters,  and  they  followed  the  wapiti 
(or,  as  they  always  called  it,  the  elk)  with  peculiar  eager- 
ness. In  consequence  its  numbers  were  soon  greatly 
thinned,  and  about  the  beginning  of  the  present  century 
it  disappeared  from  that  portion  of  its  former  range  lying 
south  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  between  the  Alleghanies 
and  the  Mississippi.  In  the  northern  Alleghanies  it  held 
its  own  much  longer,  the  last  individual  of  which  I  have 
been  able  to  get  record  having  been  killed  in  Pennsyl- 
vania in  1869.  In  the  forests  of  northern  Wisconsin, 
northern  Michigan,  and  Minnesota  wapiti  existed  still 
longer,  and  a  very  few  individuals  may  still  be  found. 
A  few  are  left  in  Manitoba.  When  Lewis  and  Clark  and 
Pike  became  the  pioneers  among  the  explorers,  army  of- 
ficers, hunters,  and  trappers  who  won  for  our  people  the 
great  West,  they  found  countless  herds  of  wapiti  through- 
out the  high  plains  country  from  the  Mississippi  River 
to  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Throughout  this  region  it  was 
exterminated  almost  as  rapidly  as  the  bison,  and  by  the 
early  eighties  there  only  remained  a  few  scattered  indi- 


258  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

viduals,  in  bits  of  rough  country  such  as  the  Black  Hills, 
the  sand-hills  of  Nebraska,  and  certain  patches  of  Bad 
Lands  along  the  Little  Missouri.  Doubtless  stragglers 
exist  even  yet  in  one  or  two  of  these  localities.  But  by 
the  time  the  great  buffalo  herds  of  the  plains  were  com- 
pletely exterminated,  in  1883,  the  wapiti  had  likewise 
ceased  to  be  a  plains  animal;  the  peculiar  Calif ornian 
form  had  also  been  well-nigh  exterminated. 

The  nature  of  its  favorite  haunts  was  the  chief  factor 
in  causing  it  to  suffer  more  than  any  other  game  in 
America,  save  the  bison,  from  the  persecution  of  hunters 
and  settlers.  The  boundaries  of  its  range  have  shrunk 
in  far  greater  proportion  than  in  the  case  of  any  of  our 
other  game  animals,  save  only  the  great  wild  ox,  with 
which  it  was  once  so  commonly  associated.  The  moose, 
a  beast  of  the  forest,  and  the  caribou,  which,  save  in  the 
far  North,  is  also  a  beast  of  the  forest,  have  in  most  places 
greatly  diminished  in  numbers,  and  have  here  and  there 
been  exterminated  altogether  from  outlying  portions  of 
their  range;  but  the  wapiti,  which,  when  free  to  choose, 
preferred  to  frequent  the  plains  and  open  woods,  has 
completely  vanished  from  nine-tenths  of  the  territory 
over  which  it  roamed  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago.  Al- 
though it  was  never  found  in  any  one  place  in  such  enor- 
mous numbers  as  the  bison  and  the  caribou,  it  nevertheless 
went  in  herds  far  larger  than  the  herds  of  any  other 
American  game  save  the  two  mentioned,  and  was  for- 
merly very  much  more  abundant  within  the  area  of  its 
distribution  than  was  the  moose  within  the  area  of  its 
distribution. 


THE   WAPITI 


259 


his  splendid  deer  affords  a  good  instance  of  the 
difficulty  of  deciding  what  name  to  use  in  treating  of  our 
American  game.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  entirely  undesir- 
able to  be  pedantic;  and  on  the  other  hand,  it  seems  a  pity, 
at  a  time  when  speech  is  written  almost  as  much  as  spo- 
ken, to  use  terms  which  perpetually  require  explanation 
in  order  to  avoid  confusion.  The  wapiti  is  not  properly 
an  elk  at  all;  the  term  wapiti  is  unexceptionable,  and  it 
is  greatly  to  be  desired  that  it  should  be  generally  adopted. 
But  unfortunately  it  has  not  been  generally  adopted. 
From  the  time  when  our  backwoodsmen  first  began  to 
hunt  the  animal  among  the  foothills  of  the  Appalachian 
chains  to  the  present  day,  it  has  been  universally  known 
as  elk  wherever  it  has  been  found.  In  ordinary  speech 
it  is  never  known  as  anything  else,  and  only  an  occasional 
settler  or  hunter  would  understand  what  the  word  wapiti 
referred  to.  The  book  name  is  a  great  deal  better  than 
the  common  name ;  but  after  all,  it  is  only  a  book  name. 
The  case  is  almost  exactly  parallel  to  that  of  the  buffalo, 
which  was  really  a  bison,  but  which  lived  as  the  buffalo, 
died  as  the  buffalo,  and  left  its  name  imprinted  on  our 
landscape  as  the  buffalo.  There  is  little  use  in  trying 
to  upset  a  name  which  is  imprinted  in  our  geography  in 
hundreds  of  such  titles  as  Elk  Ridge,  Elk  Mountain,  Elk- 
horn  River.  Yet  in  the  books  it  is  often  necessary  to 
call  it  the  wapiti  in  order  to  distinguish  it  both  from  its 
differently  named  close  kinsfolk  of  the  Old  World,  and 
from  its  more  distant  relatives  with  which  it  shares  the 
name  of  elk. 

Disregarding  the  Pacific  coast  form  of  Vancouver 


260  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

and  the  Olympian  Mountains,  the  wapiti  is  now  a  beast 
of  the  Rocky  Mountain  region  proper,  especially  in  west- 
ern Montana,  Wyoming,  and  Colorado.  Throughout 
these  mountains  its  extermination,  though  less  rapid  than 
on  the  plains,  has  nevertheless  gone  on  with  melancholy 
steadiness.  In  the  early  nineties  it  was  still  as  abundant 
as  ever  in  large  regions  in  western  Wyoming  and  Mon- 
tana and  northwestern  Colorado.  In  northwestern  Colo- 
rado the  herds  are  now  represented  by  only  a  few  hundred 
individuals.  In  western  Montana  they  are  scattered  over 
a  wider  region  and  are  protected  by  the  denser  timber, 
but  are  nowhere  plentiful.  They  have  nearly  vanished 
from  the  Big  Horn  Mountains.  They  are  still  abundant 
in  and  around  their  great  nursery  and  breeding-ground, 
the  Yellowstone  National  Park.  If  this  park  could  be 
extended  so  as  to  take  in  part  of  the  winter  range  to  the 
south,  it  would  help  to  preserve  them,  to  the  delight  of 
all  lovers  of  nature,  and  to  the  great  pecuniary  benefit 
of  the  people  of  Wyoming  and  Montana.  But  at  present 
the  winter  range  south  of  the  park  is  filling  up  with 
settlers,  and  unless  the  conditions  change,  those  among  the 
Yellowstone  wapiti  which,  would  normally  go  south  will 
more  and  more  be  compelled  to  winter  among  the  moun- 
tains, which  will  mean  such  immense  losses  from  starva- 
tion and  deep  snow  that  the  southern  herds  will  be  wo- 
fully  thinned.1  Surely  all  men  who  care  for  nature,  no 
less  than  all  men  who  care  for  big  game  hunting,  should 
combine  to  try  to  see  that  not  merely  the  States  but  the 
Federal  authorities  make  every  effort,  and  are  given  every 

1  Steps  in  the  direction  indicated  are  now  being  taken  by  the  Federal  authorities. 


THE   WAPITI  261 

power,  to  prevent  the  extermination  of  this  stately  and 
beautiful  animal,  the  lordliest  of  the  deer  kind  in  the 
entire  world. 

The  wapiti,  like  the  bison,  and  even  more  than  the 
whitetail  deer,  can  thrive  in  widely  varying  surround- 
ings. It  is  at  home  among  the  high  mountains,  in  the 
deep  forests,  and  on  the  treeless,  level  plains.  It  is  rather 
omnivorous  in  its  tastes,  browsing  and  grazing  on  all 
kinds  of  trees,  shrubs  and  grasses.  These  traits,  and  its 
hardihood,  make  it  comparatively  easy  to  perpetuate  in 
big  parks  and  forest  preserves  in  a  semi-wild  condition; 
and  it  has  thriven  in  such  preserves  and  parks  in  many 
of  the  Eastern  States.  As  it  does  not,  by  preference,  dwell 
in  such  tangled  forests  as  are  the  delight  of  the  moose 
and  the  whitetail  deer,  it  vanishes  much  quicker  than 
either  when  settlers  appear  in  the  land.  In  the  mountains 
and  foothills  its  habitat  is  much  the  same  as  that  of  the 
mule-deer,  the  two  animals  being  often  found  in  the  im- 
mediate neighborhood  of  each  other.  In  such  places  the 
superior  size  and  value  of  the  wapiti  put  it  at  a  disad- 
vantage in  the  keen  struggle  for  life,  and  when  the  rifle- 
bearing  hunter  appears  upon  the  scene,  it  is  killed  out 
long  before  its  smaller  kinsman. 

Moreover,  the  wapiti  is  undoubtedly  subject  to  queer 
freaks  of  panic  stupidity,  or  what  seems  like  a  mixture 
of  tarneness  and  of  puzzled  terror.  At  these  times  a  herd 
will  remain  almost  motionless,  the  individuals  walking 
undecidedly  to  and  fro,  and  neither  flinching  nor  giving 
any  other  sign  even  when  hit  with  a  bullet.  In  the  old 
days  it  was  not  uncommon  for  a  professional  hunter  to 


262  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

destroy  an  entire  herd  of  wapiti  when  one  of  these  fits 
of  confusion  was  on  them.  Even  nowadays  they  some- 
times behave  in  this  way.  In  1897,  Mr.  Ansley  Wilcox, 
of  Buffalo,  was  hunting  in  the  Teton  basin.  He  came 
across  a  small  herd  of  wapiti,  the  first  he  had  ever  seen, 
and  opened  fire  when  a  hundred  and  fifty  yards  distant. 
They  paid  no  heed  to  the  shots,  and  after  taking  three  or 
four  at  one  bull,  with  seemingly  no  effect,  he  ran  in  closer 
and  emptied  his  magazine  at  another,  also  seemingly 
without  effect,  before  the  herd  slowly  disappeared. 
After  a  few  rods,  both  bulls  fell;  and  on  examination 
it  was  found  that  all  nine  bullets  had  hit  them. 

To  my  mind,  the  venison  of  the  wapiti  is,  on  the 
whole,  better  than  that  of  any  other  wild  game,  though 
its  fat,  when  cooled,  at  once  hardens,  like  mutton  tallow. 

In  its  life  habits  the  wapiti  differs  somewhat  from  its 
smaller  relatives.  It  is  far  more  gregarious,  and  is  highly 
polygamous.  During  the  spring,  while  the  bulls  are 
growing  their  great  antlers,  and  while  the  cows  have 
very  young  calves,  both  bulls  and  cows  live  alone,  each 
individual  for  itself.  At  such  time  each  seeks  the  most 
secluded  situation,  often  going  very  high  up  on  the  moun- 
tains. Occasionally  a  couple  of  bulls  lie  together,  mov- 
ing around  as  little  as  possible.  The  cow  at  this  time 
realizes  that  her  calf's  chance  of  life  depends  upon  her 
absolute  seclusion,  and  avoids  all  observation. 

As  the  horns  begin  to  harden  the  bulls  thrash  the 
velvet  off  against  quaking  asp,  or  ash,  or  even  young 
spruce,  splintering  and  battering  the  bushes  and  small 
trees.  The  cows  and  calves  begin  to  assemble ;  the  bulls 


THE   WAPITI  263 

seek  them.  But  the  bulls  do  not  run  the  cows  as  among 
the  smaller  deer  the  bucks  run  the  does.  The  time  of 
the  beginning  of  the  rut  varies  in  different  places,  but  it 
usually  takes  place  in  September,  about  a  month  earlier 
than  that  of  the  deer  in  the  same  locality.  The  necks 
of  the  bulls  swell  and  they  challenge  incessantly,  for,  un- 
like the  smaller  deer,  they  are  very  noisy.  Their  love  and 
war  calls,  when  heard  at  a  little  distance  amid  the  moun- 
tains, have  a  most  musical  sound.  Frontiersmen  usually 
speak  of  their  call  as  "  whistling,"  which  is  not  an  ap- 
propriate term.  The  call  may  be  given  in  a  treble  or  in 
a  bass,  but  usually  consists  of  two  or  three  bars,  first  rising 
and  then  falling,  followed  by  a  succession  of  grunts.  The 
grunts  can  only  be  heard  when  close  up.  There  can 
be  no  grander  or  more  attractive  chorus  than  the  chal- 
lenging of  a  number  of  wapiti  bulls  when  two  great  herds 
happen  to  approach  one  another  under  the  moonlight  or 
in  the  early  dawn.  The  pealing  notes  echo  through  the 
dark  valleys  as  if  from  silver  bugles,  and  the  air  is  filled 
with  the  wild  music.  Where  little  molested  the  wapiti 
challenge  all  day  long. 

They  can  be  easiest  hunted  during  the  rut,  the  hunter 
placing  them,  and  working  up  to  them,  by  the  sound 
alone.  The  bulls  are  excessively  truculent  and  pugna- 
cious. Each  big  one  gathers  a  herd  of  cows  about  him 
and  drives  all  possible  rivals  away  from  his  immediate 
neighborhood,  although  sometimes  spike  bulls  are  al- 
lowed to  remain  with  the  herd.  Where  wapiti  are  very 
abundant,  however,  many  of  these  herds  may  join  to- 
gether and  become  partially  welded  into  a  mass  that  may 


264  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

contain  thousands  of  animals.  In  the  old  days  such  huge 
herds  were  far  from  uncommon,  especially  during  the 
migrations;  but  nowadays  there  only  remain  one  or  two 
localities  in  which  wapiti  are  sufficiently  plentiful  ever 
to  come  together  in  bands  of  any  size.  The  bulls  are 
incessantly  challenging  and  fighting  one  another,  and 
driving  around  the  cows  and  calves.  Each  keeps  the 
most  jealous  watch  over  his  own  harem,  treating  its  mem- 
bers with  great  brutality,  and  is  selfishly  indifferent  to 
their  fate  the  instant  he  thinks  his  own  life  in  jeopardy. 
During  the  rut  the  erotic  manifestations  of  the  bull  are 
extraordinary. 

One  or  two  fawns  are  born  about  May.  In  the  moun- 
tains the  cow  usually  goes  high  up  to  bring  forth  her 
fawn.  Personally  I  have  only  had  a  chance  to  observe 
the  wapiti  in  spring  in  the  neighborhood  of  my  ranch 
in  the  Bad  Lands  of  the  Little  Missouri.  Here  the  cow 
invariably  selected  some  wild,  lonely  bit  of  very  broken 
country  in  which  there  were  dense  thickets  and  some  wa- 
ter. There  was  one  such  patch  some  fifteen  miles  from 
my  ranch,  in  which  for  many  years  wapiti  regularly  bred. 
The  breeding  cow  lay  by  herself,  although  sometimes  the 
young  of  the  preceding  year  would  lurk  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. For  the  first  few  days  the  calf  hardly  left  the 
bed,  and  would  not  move  even  when  handled.  Then  it 
began  to  follow  the  mother.  In  this  particular  region 
the  grass  was  coarse  and  rank,  save  for  a  few  patches  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood  of  little  alkali  springs.  Ac- 
cordingly, it  was  not  much  visited  by  the  cattle  or  by  the 
cowboys.  Doubtless  in  the  happier  days  of  the  past, 


THE   PACK  TRAIN 


THE   WAPITI  265 

when  man  was  merely  an  infrequent  interloper,  the  wapiti 
cows  had  made  their  nurseries  in  pleasanter  and  more 
fruitful  valleys.  But  in  my  time  the  hunted  creatures 
had  learned  that  their  only  chance  was  to  escape  observa- 
tion. I  have  known  not  only  cows  with  young  calves,  but 
cows  when  the  calves  were  out  of  the  spotted  coat,  and 
even  yearlings,  to  try  to  escape  by  hiding — the  great 
beasts  lying  like  rabbits  in  some  patch  of  thick  brush, 
while  I  rode  close  by.  The  best  hunting  horse  I  ever 
had,  old  Manitou,  in  addition  to  his  other  useful  quali- 
ties, would  serve  as  a  guard  on  such  occasions.  I  would 
leave  him  on  a  little  hillock  to  one  side  of  such  a  patch 
of  brush,  and  as  he  walked  slowly  about,  grazing  and 
rattling  his  bridle  chains,  he  would  prevent  the  wapiti 
breaking  cover  on  that  side,  and  give  me  an  additional 
chance  of  slipping  around  toward  them — although  if  the 
animal  was  a  cow,  I  never  molested  it  unless  in  dire 
need  of  meat. 

Most  of  my  elk-hunting  was  done  among  the  stupen- 
dous mountain  masses  of  the  Rockies,  which  I  usually 
reached  after  a  long  journey,  with  wagon  or  pack-train, 
over  the  desolate  plains.  Ordinarily  I  planned  to  get  to 
the  hunting-ground  by  the  end  of  August,  so  as  to  have 
ample  time.  By  that  date  the  calves  were  out  of  the 
spotted  coat,  the  cows  and  the  young  of  the  preceding 
year  had  banded,  and  the  big  bulls  had  come  down  to 
join  them  from  the  remote  recesses  in  which  they  had 
been  lying,  solitary  or  in  couples,  while  their  antlers  were 
growing.  Many  bulls  were  found  alone,  or,  if  young, 
in  small  parties;  but  the  normal  arrangement  was  for 


266  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

each  big  bull  to  have  his  own  harem,  around  the  out- 
skirts of  which  there  were  to  be  found  lurking  occasional 
spike  bulls  or  two-year-olds  who  were  always  venturing 
too  near  and  being  chased  off  by  the  master  bull.  Fre- 
quently several  such  herds  joined  together  into  a  great 
band.  Before  the  season  was  fairly  on,  when  the  bulls 
had  not  been  worked  into  actual  frenzy,  there  was  not 
much  fighting  in  these  bands.  Later  they  were  the  scenes 
of  desperate  combats.  Each  master  bull  strove  to  keep 
his  harem  under  his  own  eyes,  and  was  always  threaten- 
ing and  fighting  the  other  master  bulls,  as  well  as  those 
bulls  whose  prowess  had  proved  insufficient  hitherto  to 
gain  them  a  band,  or  who,  after  having  gained  one,  had 
been  so  exhausted  and  weakened  as  to  succumb  to  some 
new  aspirant  for  the  leadership.  The  bulls  were  calling 
and  challenging  all  the  time,  and  there  was  ceaseless  tur- 
moil, owing  to  their  fights  and  their  driving  the  cows 
around.  The  cows  were  more  wary  than  the  bulls,  and 
there  were  so  many  keen  noses  and  fairly  good  eyes  that 
it  was  difficult  to  approach  a  herd;  whereas  the  single 
bulls  were  so  noisy,  careless,  and  excited  that  it  was  com- 
paratively easy  to  stalk  them.  A  rutting  wapiti  bull  is  as 
wicked-looking  a  creature  as  can  be  imagined,  swagger- 
ing among  the  cows  and  threatening  the  young  bulls,  his 
jaws  mouthing  and  working  in  a  kind  of  ugly  leer. 

The  bulls  fight  desperately  with  one  another.  The 
two  combatants  come  together  with  a  resounding  clash 
of  antlers,  and  then  push  and  strain  with  their  mouths 
open.  The  skin  on  their  necks  and  shoulders  is  so  thick 
and  tough  that  the  great  prongs  cannot  get  through  or 


THE   WAPITI  267 

do  more  than  inflict  bruises.  The  only  danger  comes 
when  the  beaten  party  turns  to  flee.  The  victor  pursues 
at  full  speed.  Usually  the  beaten  one  gets  off ;  but  if  by 
accident  he  is  caught  where  he  cannot  escape,  he  is  very 
apt  to  be  gored  in  the  flank  and  killed.  Mr.  Baillie- 
Grohman  has  given  a  very  interesting  description  of  one 
such  fatal  duel  of  which  he  was  an  eye-witness  on  a  moon- 
light night  in  the  mountains.  I  have  never  known  of  the 
bull  trying  to  protect  the  cow  from  any  enemy.  He 
battles  for  her  against  rivals  with  intense  ferocity;  but 
his  attitude  toward  her,  once  she  is  gained,  is  either  that 
of  brutality  or  of  indifference.  She  will  fight  for  her 
calf  against  any  enemy  which  she  thinks  she  has  a  chance 
of  conquering,  although  of  course  not  against  man.  But 
the  bull  leaves  his  family  to  their  fate  the  minute  he 
thinks  there  is  any  real  danger.  During  the  rut  he  is 
greatly  excited,  and  does  not  fear  a  dog  or  a  single  wolf, 
and  may  join  with  the  rest  of  the  herd  of  both  sexes  in 
trying  to  chase  off  one  or  the  other,  should  he  become 
aware  of  its  approach.  But  if  there  is  serious  danger, 
his  only  thought  is  for  himself,  and  he  has  no  compunc- 
tions about  sacrificing  any  of  his  family.  When  on  the 
move  a  cow  almost  always  goes  first,  while  the  bull  brings 
up  the  rear. 

In  domestication  the  bulls  are  very  dangerous  to 
human  beings,  and  will  kill  a  man  at  once  if  they  can 
get  him  at  a  disadvantage;  but  in  a  state  of  nature  they 
rarely  indeed  overcome  their  abject  terror  of  humanity, 
even  when  wounded  and  cornered.  Of  course,  if  the  man 
comes  straight  up  to  him  where  he  cannot  get  away,  a 


268  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

wapiti  will  fight  as,  under  like  circumstances,  a  blacktail 
or  whitetail  will  fight,  and  equally,  of  course,  he  is  then 
far  more  dangerous  than  his  smaller  kinsfolk;  but  he  is 
not  nearly  so  apt  to  charge  as  a  bull  moose.  I  have  never 
known  but  two  authentic  instances  of  their  thus  charg- 
ing. One  happened  to  a  hunter  named  Bennett,  on  the 
Little  Missouri ;  the  other  to  a  gentleman  I  met,  a  doctor, 
in  Meeker,  Colorado.  The  doctor  had  wounded  his 
wapiti,  and  as  it  was  in  the  late  fall,  followed  him  easily 
in  the  snow.  Finally  he  came  upon  the  wapiti  standing 
where  the  snow  was  very  deep  at  the  bottom  of  a  small 
valley,  and  on  his  approach  the  wapiti  deliberately 
started  to  break  his  way  through  the  snow  toward  him, 
and  had  almost  reached  him  when  he  was  killed.  But 
for  every  one  such  instance  of  a  wapiti's  charging  there 
are  a  hundred  in  which  a  bull  moose  has  charged.  Sena- 
tor Redfield  Proctor  was  charged  most  resolutely  by  a 
mortally  hurt  bull  moose  which  fell  in  the  death  throes 
just  before  reaching  him;  and  I  could  cite  case  after 
case  of  the  kind. 

The  wapiti's  natural  gaits  are  a  walk  and  a  trot.  It 
walks  very  fast  indeed,  especially  if  travelling  to  reach 
some  given  point.  More  than  once  I  have  sought  to  over- 
take a  travelling  bull,  and  have  found  myself  absolutely 
unable  to  do  so,  although  it  never  broke  its  walk.  Of 
course,  if  I  had  not  been  obliged  to  pay  any  heed  to  cover 
or  wind,  I  could  have  run  up  on  it;  but  the  necessity 
for  paying  heed  to  both  handicapped  me  so  that  I  was 
actually  unable  to  come  up  to  the  quarry  as  it  swung 
steadily  on  through  woodland  and  open,  over  rough 


THE   WAPITI  269 

ground  and  smooth.  Wapiti  have  a  slashing  trot,  which 
they  can  keep  up  for  an  indefinite  time  and  over  any 
kind  of  country.  Only  a  good  pony  can  overtake  them 
when  they  have  had  any  start  and  have  settled  into  this 
trot.  If  much  startled  they  break  into  a  gallop — the 
young  being  always  much  more  willing  to  gallop  than 
the  old.  Their  gallop  is  very  fast,  especially  downhill. 
But  they  speedily  tire  under  it.  A  yearling  or  a  two-year- 
old  can  keep  it  up  for  a  couple  of  miles.  A  heavy  old 
bull  will  be  done  out  after  a  few  hundred  yards.  I  once 
saw  a  band  of  wapiti  frightened  into  a  gallop  down  a 
steep  incline  where  there  were  also  a  couple  of  mule- 
deer.  I  had  not  supposed  that  wapiti  ran  as  fast  as  mule- 
deer,  but  this  particular  band  actually  passed  the  deer, 
though  the  latter  were  evidently  doing  their  best;  the 
wapiti  were  well  ahead,  when,  after  thundering  down  the 
steep,  broken  incline,  they  all  disappeared  into  a  belt 
of  woodland.  In  spite  of  their  size,  wapiti  climb  well 
and  go  sure-footedly  over  difficult  and  dangerous  ground. 
They  have  a  habit  of  coming  out  to  the  edges  of  cliffs, 
or  on  mountain  spurs,  and  looking  over  the  landscape 
beneath,  almost  as  though  they  enjoyed  the  scenery. 
What  their  real  object  is  on  such  occasions  I  do  not 
know. 

The  nose  of  the  wapiti  is  very  keen.  Its  sight  is  much 
inferior  to  that  of  the  antelope,  but  about  as  good  as  a 
deer's.  Its  hearing  is  also  much  like  that  of  a  deer. 
When  in  country  where  it  is  little  molested,  it  feeds  and 
moves  about  freely  by  day,  lying  down  to  rest  at  inter- 
vals, like  cattle.  Wapiti  offer  especial  attractions  to  the 


270  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

hunter,  and  next  to  the  bison  are  more  quickly  exter- 
minated than  any  other  kind  of  game.  Only  the  fact  that 
they  possessed  a  far  wider  range  of  habitat  than  either 
the  mule-deer,  the  prongbuck,  or  the  moose,  has  enabled 
them  still  to  exist.  Their  gregariousness  is  also  against 
them.  Even  after  the  rut  the  herds  continue  together 
until  in  midspring  the  bulls  shed  their  antlers — for  they 
keep  their  antlers  at  least  two  months  longer  than  deer. 
During  the  fall,  winter,  and  early  spring  wapiti  are  rov- 
ing, restless  creatures.  Their  habit  of  migration  varies 
with  locality,  as  among  mule-deer.  Along  the  little  Mis- 
souri, as  in  the  plains  country  generally,  there  was  no 
well-defined  migration.  Up  to  the  early  eighties,  when 
wapiti  were  still  plentiful,  the  bands  wandered  far  and 
wide,  but  fitfully  and  irregularly,  wholly  without  regard 
to  the  season,  save  that  they  were  stationary  from  May 
to  August.  After  1883  there  were  but  a  few  individuals 
left,  although  as  late  as  1886  I  once  came  across  a  herd 
of  nine.  These  surviving  individuals  had  learned  cau- 
tion. The  bulls  only  called  by  night,  and  not  very 
frequently  then,  and  they  spent  the  entire  year  in  the 
roughest  and  most  out-of-the-way  places,  having  the  same 
range  both  winter  and  summer.  They  selected  tracts 
where  the  ground  was  very  broken  and  there  was  much 
shrubbery  and  patches  of  small  trees.  This  tree  and 
bush  growth  gave  them  both  shelter  and  food;  for  they 
are  particularly  fond  of  browsing  on  the  leaves  and  ten- 
der twig  ends,  though  they  also  eat  weeds  and  grass. 

Wherever  wapiti  dwell  among  the  mountains  they 
make    regular    seasonal    migrations.     In    northwestern 


THE   WAPITI  271 

Wyoming  they  spend  the  summer  in  the  Yellowstone 
National  Park,  but  in  winter  some  go  south  to  Jackson's 
Hole,  while  others  winter  in  the  park  to  the  northeast. 
In  northwestern  Colorado  their  migrations  followed 
much  the  same  line  as  those  of  the  mule-deer.  In  dif- 
ferent localities  the  length  of  the  migration,  and  even  the 
time,  differed.  There  were  some  places  where  the  shift 
was  simply  from  the  high  mountains  down  to  their  foot- 
hills. In  other  places  great  herds  travelled  a  couple  of 
hundred  miles,  so  that  localities  absolutely  barren  one 
month  would  be  swarming  with  wapiti  the  next.  In 
some  places  the  shift  took  place  as  early  as  the  month 
of  August;  in  others  not  until  after  the  rut,  in  October 
or  even  November;  and  in  some  places  the  rut  took  place 
during  the  migration. 

No  chase  is  more  fascinating  than  that  of  the  wapiti. 
In  the  old  days,  when  the  mighty  antlered  beasts  were 
found  upon  the  open  plains,  they  could  be  followed  upon 
horseback,  with  or  without  hounds.  Nowadays,  when 
they  dwell  in  the  mountains,  they  are  to  be  killed  only 
by  the  rifle-bearing  still-hunter.  Needless  butchery  of 
any  kind  of  animal  is  repulsive,  but  in  the  case  of  the 
wapiti  it  is  little  short  of  criminal.  He  is  the  grandest 
of  the  deer  kind  throughout  the  world,  and  he  has  al- 
ready vanished  from  most  of  the  places  where  he  once 
dwelt  in  his  pride.  Every  true  sportsman  should  feel  it 
incumbent  upon  him  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  preserve 
so  noble  a  beast  of  the  chase  from  extinction.  No  harm 
whatever  comes  to  the  species  from  killing  a  certain  num- 
ber of  bulls;  but  an  excessive  number  should  never  be 


272 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


killed,  and  no  cow  or  calf  should  under  any  circumstances 
be  touched.  Formerly,  when  wapiti  were  plentiful,  it 
would  have  been  folly  for  hunters  and  settlers  in  the 
unexplored  wilderness  not  to  kill  wild  game  for  their 
meat,  and  occasionally  a  cow  or  a  calf  had  to  be  thus 
slain ;  but  there  is  no  excuse  nowadays  for  a  hunting  party 
killing  anything  but  a  full-grown  bull. 

In  a  civilized  and  cultivated  country  wild  animals 
only  continue  to  exist  at  all  when  preserved  by  sports- 
men. The  excellent  people  who  protest  against  all  hunt- 
ing, and  consider  sportsmen  as  enemies  of  wild  life,  are 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  in  reality  the  genuine  sports- 
man is  by  all  odds  the  most  important  factor  in  keeping 
the  larger  and  more  valuable  wild  creatures  from  total 
extermination.  Of  course,  if  wild  animals  were  allowed 
to  breed  unchecked,  they  would,  in  an  incredibly  short 
space  of  time,  render  any  country  uninhabitable  by  man 
— a  fact  which  ought  to  be  a  matter  of  elementary  knowl- 
edge in  any  community  where  the  average  intelligence 
is  above  that  of  certain  portions  of  Hindoostan.  Equally, 
of  course,  in  a  purely  utilitarian  community  all  wild  ani- 
mals are  exterminated  out  of  hand.  In  order  to  preserve 
the  wild  life  of  the  wilderness  at  all,  some  middle  ground 
must  be  found  between  brutal  and  senseless  slaughter  and 
the  unhealthy  sentimentalism  which  would  just  as  surely 
defeat  its  own  end  by  bringing  about  the  eventual  total 
extinction  of  the  game.  It  is  impossible  to  preserve  the 
larger  wild  animals  in  regions  thoroughly  fit  for  agri- 
culture; and  it  is  perhaps  too  much  to  hope  that  the 
larger  carnivores  can  be  preserved  for  merely  aesthetic 


THE   WAPITI  273 

reasons.  But  throughout  our  country  there  are  large  re- 
gions entirely  unsuited  for  agriculture,  where,  if  the  peo- 
ple only  have  foresight,  they  can,  through  the  power  of 
the  State,  keep  the  game  in  perpetuity.  There  is  no  hope 
of  preserving  the  bison  permanently,  save  in  large  private 
parks;  but  all  other  game,  including  not  merely  deer, 
but  the  pronghorn,  the  splendid  bighorn,  and  the  stately 
and  beautiful  wapiti,  can  be  kept  on  the  public  lands,  if 
only  the  proper  laws  are  passed,  and  if  only  these  laws 
are  properly  enforced. 

Most  of  us,  as  we  grow  older,  grow  to  care  relatively 
less  for  sport  than  for  the  splendid  freedom  and  abound- 
ing health  of  outdoor  life  in  the  woods,  on  the  plains, 
and  among  the  great  mountains;  and  to  the  true  nature 
lover  it  is  melancholy  to  see  the  wilderness  stripped  of 
the  wild  creatures  which  gave  it  no  small  part  of  its 
peculiar  charm.  It  is  inevitable,  and  probably  necessary, 
that  the  wolf  and  the  cougar  should  go;  but  the  bighorn 
and  white  goat  among  the  rocks,  the  blacktail  and  wapiti 
grouped  on  the  mountain  side,  the  whitetail  and  moose 
feeding  in  the  sedgy  ponds — these  add  beyond  measure 
to  the  wilderness  landscape,  and  if  they  are  taken  away 
they  leave  a  lack  which  nothing  else  can  quite  make 
good.  So  it  is  of  those  true  birds  of  the  wilderness,  the 
eagle  and  the  raven,  and,  indeed,  of  all  the  wild  things, 
furred,  feathered,  and  finned. 

A  peculiar  charm  in  the  chase  of  the  wapiti  comes 
from  the  wild  beauty  of  the  country  in  which  it  dwells. 
The  moose  lives  in  marshy  forests;  if  one  would  seek 
the  white  goat  or  caribou  of  the  northern  Rockies,  he 


274  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

must  travel  on  foot,  pack  on  back;  while  the  successful 
chase  of  the  bighorn,  perhaps  on  the  whole  the  manliest 
of  all  our  sports,  means  heart-breaking  fatigue  for  any 
but  the  strongest  and  hardiest.  The  prongbuck,  again, 
must  be  followed  on  the  desolate,  sun-scorched  plains. 
But  the  wapiti  now  dwells  amid  lofty,  pine-clad  moun- 
tains, in  a  region  of  lakes  and  streams.  A  man  can  travel 
in  comfort  while  hunting  it,  because  he  can  almost  al- 
ways take  a  pack-train  with  him,  and  the  country  is  usu- 
ally sufficiently  open  to  enable  the  hunter  to  enjoy  all 
the  charm  of  distant  landscapes.  Where  the  wapiti  lives 
the  spotted  trout  swarm  in  the  brooks,  and  the  wood- 
grouse fly  upward  to  perch  among  the  tree-tops  as  the 
hunter  passes  them.  When  hunting  him  there  is  always 
sweet  cold  water  to  be  drunk  at  night,  and  beds  of  aro- 
matic fir  boughs  on  which  to  sleep,  with  the  blankets 
drawn  over  one  to  keep  out  the  touch  of  the  frost.  He 
must  be  followed  on  foot,  and  the  man  who  follows  him 
must  be  sound  in  limb  and  wind.  But  his  pursuit  does 
not  normally  mean  such  wearing  exhaustion  as  is  en- 
tailed by  climbing  cliffs  all  day  long  after  the  white 
goat.  Whoever  has  hunted  the  wapiti,  as  he  looks  at  his 
trophies  will  always  think  of  the  great  mountains  with 
the  snow  lying  in  the  rifts  in  their  sides;  of  the  splashing 
murmur  of  rock-choked  torrents;  of  the  odorous  breath 
of  the  pine  branches;  of  tents  pitched  in  open  glades; 
of  long  walks  through  cool,  open  forests;  and  of  great 
camp-fires,  where  the  pitchy  stumps  flame  like  giant 
torches  in  the  darkness. 

In  the  old  days,  of  course,  much  of  the  hunting  was 


THE   WAPITI  275 

done  on  the  open  plains  or  among  low,  rugged  hills.  The 
wapiti  that  I  shot  when  living  at  my  Little  Missouri 
ranch  were  killed  under  exactly  the  same  conditions  as 
mule-deer.  When  I  built  my  ranch-house,  wapiti  were 
still  not  uncommon,  and  their  shed  antlers  were  very  nu- 
merous both  on  the  bottoms  and  in  places  among  the  hills. 
There  was  one  such  place  a  couple  of  miles  from  my 
ranch  in  a  stretch  of  comparatively  barren  but  very  broken 
hill-country  in  which  there  were  many  score  of  these  shed 
antlers.  Evidently  a  few  years  before  this  had  been  a 
great  gathering-place  for  wapiti  toward  the  end  of  win- 
ter. My  ranch  itself  derived  its  name,  "  The  Elkhorn," 
from  the  fact  that  on  the  ground  where  we  built  it  were 
found  the  skulls  and  interlocked  antlers  of  two  wapiti 
bulls  who  had  perished  from  getting  their  antlers  fast- 
ened in  a  battle.  I  never,  however,  killed  a  wapiti  while 
on  a  day's  hunt  from  the  ranch  itself.  Those  that  I  killed 
were  obtained  on  regular  expeditions,  when  I  took  the 
wagon  and  drove  off  to  spend  a  night  or  two  on  ground 
too  far  for  me  to  hunt  it  through  in  a  single  day  from 
the  ranch.  Moreover,  the  wapiti  on  the  Little  Missouri 
had  been  so  hunted  that  they  had  entirely  abandoned  the 
diurnal  habits  of  their  kind,  and  it  was  a  great  advan- 
tage to  get  on  the  ground  early.  This  hunting  was  not 
carried  on  amid  the  glorious  mountain  scenery  which 
marks  the  home  of  the  wapiti  in  the  Rockies;  but  the 
surroundings  had  a  charm  of  their  own.  All  really  wild 
scenery  is  attractive.  The  true  hunter,  the  true  lover 
of  the  wilderness,  loves  all  parts  of  the  wilderness,  just 
as  the  true  lover  of  nature  loves  all  seasons.  There  is 


276  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

no  season  of  the  year  when  the  country  is  not  more  at- 
tractive than  the  city;  and  there  is  no  portion  of  the  wil- 
derness, where  game  is  found,  in  which  it  is  not  a  keen 
pleasure  to  hunt.  Perhaps  no  other  kind  of  country 
quite  equals  that  where  snow  lies  on  the  lofty  mountain 
peaks,  where  there  are  many  open  glades  in  the  pine  for- 
ests, and  clear  mountain  lakes  and  rushing  trout-filled 
torrents.  But  the  fantastic  desolation  of  the  Bad  Lands, 
and  the  endless  sweep  of  the  brown  prairies,  alike  have 
their  fascination  for  the  true  lover  of  nature  and  lover 
of  the  wilderness  who  goes  through  them  on  foot  or  on 
horseback.  As  for  the  broken  hill-country  in  which  I 
followed  the  wapiti  and  the  mule-deer  along  the  Little 
Missouri,  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  any  one  found 
it  otherwise  than  attractive  in  the  bright,  sharp  fall 
weather.  Long,  grassy  valleys  wound  among  the  boldly 
shaped  hills.  The  basins  were  filled  with  wind-beaten 
trees  and  brush,  which  generally  also  ran  alongside  of  the 
dry  watercourses  down  the  middle  of  each  valley.  Cedars 
clustered  in  the  sheer  ravines,  and  here  and  there  groups 
of  elm  and  ash  grew  to  a  considerable  height  in  the  more 
sheltered  places.  At  the  first  touch  of  the  frost  the  foliage 
turned  russet  or  yellow — the  Virginia  creepers  crimson. 
Under  the  cloudless  blue  sky  the  air  was  fresh  and  cool, 
and  as  we  lay  by  the  camp-fire  at  night  the  stars  shone 
with  extraordinary  brilliancy.  Under  such  conditions 
the  actual  chase  of  the  wapiti  was  much  like  that  of  the 
mule-deer.  They  had  been  so  hunted  that  they  showed 
none  of  the  foolish  traits  which  they  are  prone  to  exhibit 
when  bands  are  found  in  regions  where  they  have  been 


THE   WAPITI  277 

little  persecuted ;  and  they  were  easier  to  kill  than  mule- 
deer  simply  because  they  were  more  readily  tracked  and 
more  readily  seen,  and  offered  a  larger,  and  on  the  whole 
a  steadier,  mark  at  which  to  shoot.  When  a  small  band 
had  visited  a  pool  their  tracks  could  be  identified  at  once, 
because  in  the  soft  ground  the  flexible  feet  spread  and 
yielded  so  as  to  leave  the  marks  of  the  false  hoofs.  On 
ordinary  ground  it  was  difficult  to  tell  their  footprints 
from  those  of  the  yearling  and  two-year-old  ranch  cattle. 
But  the  mountains  are  the  true  ground  for  the  wapiti. 
Here  he  must  be  hunted  on  foot,  and  nowadays,  since  he 
has  grown  wiser,  skill  and  patience,  and  the  capacity  to 
endure  fatigue  and  exposure,  must  be  shown  by  the  suc- 
cessful hunter.  My  own  wapiti-hunting  has  been  done 
in  September  and  early  October  during  the  height  of 
the  rut,  and  therefore  at  a  time  when  the  conditions  were 
most  favorable  for  the  hunter.  I  have  hunted  them  in 
many  places  throughout  the  Rockies,  from  the  Big  Horn 
in  western  Wyoming  to  the  Big  Hole  Basin  in  western 
Montana,  close  to  the  Idaho  line.  Where  I  hunted,  the 
wapiti  were  always  very  noisy  both  by  day  and  by  night, 
and  at  least  half  of  the  bulls  that  I  killed  attracted  my 
attention  by  their  calling  before  I  saw  either  them  or  their 
tracks.  At  night  they  frequently  passed  close  to  camp, 
or  came  nearly  up  to  the  picketed  horses,  challenging  all 
the  time.  More  than  once  I  slipped  out,  hoping  to  kill 
one  by  moonlight,  but  I  never  succeeded.  Occasionally, 
when  they  were  plentiful,  and  were  restless  and  always 
roving  about,  I  simply  sat  still  on  a  log,  until  one  gave 
me  a  chance.  Sometimes  I  came  across  them  while  hunt- 


278  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ing  through  likely  localities,  going  up  or  across  wind, 
keeping  the  sharpest  lookout,  and  moving  with  great  care 
and  caution,  until  I  happened  to  strike  the  animals  I 
was  after.  More  than  once  I  took  the  trail  of  a  band, 
when  out  with  some  first-class  woodsman,  and  after  much 
running,  dodging,  and  slipping  through  the  timber,  over- 
took the  animals — though  usually  when  thus  merely  fol- 
lowing the  trail  I  failed  to  come  up  with  them.  On  two 
different  occasions  I  followed  and  came  up  to  bands, 
attracted  by  their  scent.  Wapiti  have  a  strong,  and,  on 
the  whole,  pleasing  scent,  like  that  of  Alderney  cattle, 
although  in  old  bulls  it  becomes  offensively  strong.  This 
scent  is  very  penetrating.  I  once  smelt  a  herd  which  was 
lying  quite  still  taking  its  noonday  siesta,  certainly  half 
a  mile  to  the  windward  of  me;  and  creeping  up  I  shot 
a  good  bull  as  he  lay.  On  another  occasion,  while  work- 
ing through  the  tangled  trees  and  underbrush  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  little  winding  valley,  I  suddenly  smelt  wapiti 
ahead,  and  without  paying  any  further  attention  to  the 
search  for  tracks,  I  hunted  cautiously  up  the  valley,  and 
when  it  forked  was  able  to  decide  by  the  smell  alone 
which  way  the  wapiti  had  gone.  He  was  going  up 
wind  ahead  of  me,  and  his  ground-covering  walk  kept 
me  at  a  trot  in  order  to  overtake  him.  Finally  I  saw 
him,  before  he  saw  me,  and  then,  by  making  a  run  to 
one  side,  got  a  shot  at  him  when  he  broke  cover,  and 
dropped  him. 

It  is  exciting  to  creep  up  to  a  calling  wapiti.  If  it 
is  a  solitary  bull,  he  is  apt  to  be  travelling,  seeking  the 
cows,  or  on  the  lookout  for  some  rival  of  weaker  thews. 


THE   WAPITI 


279 


Under  such  circumstances  only  hard  running  will  enable 
the  hunter  to  overtake  him,  unless  there  is  a  chance  to 
cut  him  off.  If,  however,  he  hears  another  bull,  or  has 
a  herd  under  him,  the  chances  are  that  he  is  nearly  sta- 
tionary, or  at  least  is  moving  slowly,  and  the  hunter  has 
every  opportunity  to  approach.  In  a  herd  the  bull  him- 
self is  usually  so  absorbed  both  with  his  cows  and  with 
his  rivals  that  he  is  not  at  all  apt  to  discover  the  ap- 
proaching hunter.  The  cows,  however,  are  thoroughly 
awake,  and  it  is  their  eyes  and  keen  noses  for  which  the 
hunter  must  look  out.  A  solitary  bull  which  is  answer- 
ing the  challenge  of  another  is  the  easiest  of  all  to 
approach.  Of  course,  if  there  has  been  much  hunting, 
even  such  a  bull  is  wary  and  is  on  the  lookout  for  harm. 
But  in  remote  localities  he  becomes  so  absorbed  in  finding 
out  the  whereabouts  of  his  rival,  and  is  so  busy  answer- 
ing the  latter's  challenges  and  going  through  motions 
of  defiance,  that  with  proper  care  it  is  comparatively 
easy  to  approach  him.  Once,  when  within  seventy  yards 
of  such  a  bull,  he  partly  made  me  out  and  started  toward 
me.  Evidently  he  could  not  tell  exactly  what  I  was — 
my  buckskin  shirt  probably  helping  to  puzzle  him — and 
in  his  anger  and  eagerness  he  did  not  think  of  danger 
until  it  was  too  late.  On  another  occasion  I  got  up  to 
two  bulls  that  were  fighting,  and  killed  both.  In  the 
fights,  weight  of  body  seems  to  count  for  more  than  size 
of  antlers. 

Once  I  spent  the  better  part  of  a  day  in  following  a 
wapiti  bull  before  I  finally  got  him.  Generally  when 
hunting  wapiti  I  have  been  with  either  one  of  my  men 


28o  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

from  the  ranch  or  a  hunter  like  Tazewell  Woody,  or  John 
Willis.  On  this  particular  occasion,  however,  I  hap- 
pened to  be  alone ;  and  though  I  have  rarely  been  as  suc- 
cessful alone  as  when  in  the  company  of  some  thoroughly 
trained  and  experienced  plainsman  or  mountainman,  yet 
when  success  does  come  under  such  circumstances  it  is 
always  a  matter  of  peculiar  pride. 

At  the  time,  I  was  camped  in  a  beautiful  valley 
high  among  the  mountains  which  divide  southwestern 
Montana  from  Idaho.  The  weather  was  cold,  and  there 
were  a  couple  of  inches  of  snow  on  the  ground,  so  that 
the  conditions  were  favorable  for  tracking  and  stalking. 
The  country  was  well  wooded,  but  the  forest  was  not 
dense,  and  there  were  many  open  glades.  Early  one 
morning,  just  about  dawn,  the  cook,  who  had  been  up  for 
a  few  minutes,  waked  me,  to  say  that  a  bull  wapiti  was 
calling  not  far  off.  I  rolled  out  of  my  bed  and  was 
dressed  in  short  order.  The  bull  had  by  this  time  passed 
the  camp,  and  was  travelling  toward  a  range  of  moun- 
tains on  the  other  side  of  the  stream  which  ran  down  the 
valley  bottom.  He  was  evidently  not  alarmed,  for  he 
was  still  challenging.  I  gulped  down  a  cup  of  hot  coffee, 
munched  a  piece  of  hardtack,  and  thrust  four  or  five  other 
pieces  and  a  cold  elk  tongue  into  my  hunting-shirt,  and 
then,  as  it  had  grown  light  enough  to  travel,  started  after 
the  wapiti.  I  supposed  that  in  a  few  minutes  I  should 
either  have  overtaken  him  or  abandoned  the  pursuit,  and 
I  took  the  food  with  me  simply  because  in  the  wilderness 
it  never  pays  to  be  unprepared  for  emergencies.  The 
wisdom  of  such  a  course  was  shown  in  this  instance  by 


THE   WAPITI  281 


the  fact  that  I  did  not  see  camp  again  until  long  after 
dark. 

I  at  first  tried  to  cut  off  the  wapiti  by  trotting  through 
the  woods  toward  the  pass  for  which  I  supposed  he  was 
headed.  The  morning  was  cold,  and,  as  always  happens 
at  the  outset  when  one  starts  to  take  violent  exercise  under 
such  circumstances,  the  running  caused  me  to  break  into 
a  perspiration;  so  that  the  first  time  I  stopped  to  listen 
for  the  wapiti  a  regular  fog  rose  over  my  glasses  and 
then  froze  on  them.  I  could  not  see  a  thing,  and  after 
wiping  them  found  I  had  to  keep  gently  moving  in  order 
to  prevent  them  from  clouding  over  again.  It  is  on 
such  cold  mornings,  or  else  in  very  rainy  weather,  that 
the  man  who  has  not  been  gifted  with  good  eyes  is  most 
sensible  of  his  limitations.  I  once  lost  a  caribou  which 
I  had  been  following  at  speed  over  the  snow  because 
when  I  came  into  sight  and  halted  the  moisture  instantly 
formed  and  froze  on  my  glasses  so  that  I  could  not  see 
anything,  and  before  I  got  them  clear  the  game  had  van- 
ished. Whatever  happened,  I  was  bound  that  I  should 
not  lose  this  wapiti  from  a  similar  accident. 

However,  when  I  next  heard  him  he  had  evidently 
changed  his  course  and  was  going  straight  away  from  me. 
The  sun  had  now  risen,  and  following  after  him  I  soon 
found  his  tracks.  He  was  walking  forward  with  the 
regular  wapiti  stride,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  I  had  a 
long  chase  ahead  of  me.  We  were  going  up  hill,  and 
though  I  walked  hard,  I  did  not  trot  until  we  topped  the 
crest.  Then  I  jogged  along  at  a  good  gait,  and  as  I  had 
on  moccasins,  and  the  woods  were  open,  I  did  not  have 


282  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

to  exercise  much  caution.  Accordingly  I  gained,  and 
felt  I  was  about  to  come  up  with  him,  when  the  wind 
brought  down  from  very  far  off  another  challenge.  My 
bull  heard  it  before  I  did,  and  instantly  started  toward 
the  spot  at  a  trot.  There  was  not  the  slightest  use  of  my 
attempting  to  keep  up  with  this,  and  I  settled  down  into 
a  walk.  Half  an  hour  afterward  I  came  over  a  slight 
crest,  and  immediately  saw  a  herd  of  wapiti  ahead  of  me, 
across  the  valley  and  on  an  open  hillside.  The  herd  was 
in  commotion,  the  master  bull  whistling  vigorously  and 
rounding  up  his  cows,  evidently  much  excited  at  the  new 
bull's  approach.  There  were  two  or  three  yearlings  and 
two-year-old  bulls  on  the  outskirts  of  the  herd,  and  the 
master  bull,  whose  temper  had  evidently  not  been 
improved  by  the  coming  of  the  stranger,  occasionally 
charged  these  and  sent  them  rattling  off  through  the 
bushes.  The  ground  was  so  open  between  me  and  them 
that  I  dared  not  venture  across  it,  and  I  was  forced  to  lie 
still  and  await  developments.  The  bull  I  had  been  fol- 
lowing and  the  herd  bull  kept  challenging  vigorously, 
but  the  former  probably  recognized  in  the  latter  a  heavier 
animal,  and  could  not  rouse  his  courage  to  the  point  of 
actually  approaching  and  doing  battle.  It  by  no  means 
follows  that  the  animal  with  the  heaviest  body  has  the  best 
antlers,  but  the  hesitation  thus  shown  by  the  bull  I  was 
following  made  me  feel  that  the  other  would  probably 
yield  the  more  valuable  trophies,  and  after  a  couple  of 
hours  I  made  up  my  mind  to  try  to  get  near  the  herd, 
abandoning  the  animal  I  had  been  after. 

The  herd  showed  but  little  symptoms  of  moving,  the 


THE   WAPITI  283 

cows  when  let  alone  scattering  out  to  graze,  and  some 
of  them  even  lying  down.  Accordingly  I  did  not  hurry 
myself,  and  spent  considerably  over  an  hour  in  slipping 
off  to  the  right  and  approaching  through  a  belt  of  small 
firs.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  wind  had  slightly 
shifted,  and  while  I  was  out  of  sight  of  the  herd  they  had 
also  come  down  toward  the  spot  from  whence  I  had  been 
watching  them.  Accordingly,  just  as  I  was  beginning 
to  creep  forward  with  the  utmost  caution,  expecting  to 
see  them  at  any  moment,  I  heard  a  thumping  and  crack- 
ing of  branches  that  showed  they  were  on  the  run.  With 
wapiti  there  is  always  a  chance  of  overtaking  them  after 
they  have  first  started,  because  they  tack  and  veer  and 
halt  to  look  around.  Therefore  I  ran  forward  as  fast 
as  I  could  through  the  woods;  but  when  I  came  to  the 
edge  of  the  fir  belt  I  saw  that  the  herd  were  several  hun- 
dred yards  off.  They  were  clustered  together  and  look- 
ing back,  and  saw  me  at  once. 

Off  they  started  again.  The  old  bull,  however,  had 
neither  seen  me  nor  smelt  me,  and  when  I  heard  his 
whistle  of  rage  I  knew  he  had  misinterpreted  the  reason 
for  the  departure  of  his  cows,  and  in  another  moment  he 
came  in  sight,  evidently  bent  on  rounding  them  up.  On 
his  way  he  attacked  and  drove  off  one  of  the  yearlings, 
and  then  took  after  the  cows,  while  the  yearling  ran  toward 
the  outlying  bull.  The  latter  evidently  failed  to  under- 
stand what  had  happened ;  at  least  he  showed  no  signs  of 
alarm.  Neither,  however,  'did  he  attempt  to  follow  the 
fleeing  herd,  but  started  off  again  on  his  own  line. 

I  was  sure  the  herd  would  not  stop  for  some  miles, 


284  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

and  accordingly  I  resumed  my  chase  of  the  single  bull. 
He  walked  for  certainly  three  miles  before  he  again 
halted,  and  I  was  then  half  a  mile  behind  him.  On  this 
occasion  he  struck  a  small  belt  of  woodland  and  began 
to  travel  to  and  fro  through  it,  probably  with  an  idea  of 
lying  down.  I  was  able  to  get  up  fairly  close  by  crawl- 
ing on  all-fours  through  the  snow  for  part  of  the  distance; 
but  just  as  I  was  about  to  fire  he  moved  slightly,  and 
though  my  shot  hit  him,  it  went  a  little  too  far  back. 
He  plunged  over  the  hill  crest  and  was  off  at  a  gallop, 
and  after  running  forward  and  failing  to  overtake  him  in 
the  first  rush,  I  sat  down  to  consider  matters.  The  snow 
had  begun  to  melt  under  the  sun,  and  my  knees  and  the 
lower  parts  of  my  sleeves  were  wet  from  my  crawl,  and  I 
was  tired  and  hungry  and  very  angry  at  having  failed  to 
kill  the  wapiti.  It  was,  however,  early  in  the  afternoon, 
and  I  thought  that  if  I  let  the  wapiti  alone  for  an  hour, 
he  would  lie  down,  and  then  grow  stiff  and  reluctant  to 
get  up ;  while  in  the  snow  I  was  sure  I  could  easily  follow 
his  tracks.  Therefore  I  ate  my  lunch,  and  then  swal- 
lowed some  mouthfuls  of  snow  in  lieu  of  drinking. 

An  hour  afterward  I  took  the  trail.  It  was  evident 
the  bull  was  hard  hit,  but  even  after  he  had  changed  his 
plunging  gallop  for  a  trot  he  showed  no  signs  of  stop- 
ping; fortunately  his  trail  did  not  cross  any  other.  The 
blood  signs  grew  infrequent,  and  two  or  three  times  he 
went  up  places  which  made  it  difficult  for  me  to  believe 
he  was  much  hurt.  At  last,  however,  I  came  to  where 
he  had  lain  down ;  but  he  had  risen  again  and  gone  for- 
ward. For  a  moment  I  feared  that  my  approach  had 


THE   WAPITI  285 

alarmed  him,  but  this  was  evidently  not  the  case,  for  he 
was  now  walking.  I  left  the  trail,  and  turning  to  one 
side  below  the  wind  I  took  a  long  circle  and  again  struck 
back  to  the  bottom  of  the  valley  down  which  the  wapiti 
had  been  travelling.  The  timber  here  was  quite  thick, 
and  I  moved  very  cautiously,  continually  halting  and 
listening  for  five  or  ten  minutes.  Not  a  sound  did  I 
hear,  and  I  crossed  the  valley  bottom  and  began  to  ascend 
the  other  side  without  finding  the  trail.  Unless  he  had 
turned  off  up  the  mountains  I  knew  that  this  meant  he 
must  have  lain  down;  so  I  retraced  my  steps  and  with 
extreme  caution  began  to  make  my  way  up  the  valley. 
Finally  I  came  to  a  little  opening,  and  after  peering  about 
for  five  minutes  I  stepped  forward,  and  instantly  heard 
a  struggling  and  crashing  in  a  clump  of  young  spruce  on 
the  other  side.  It  was  the  wapiti  trying  to  get  on  his 
feet.  I  ran  forward  at  my  best  pace,  and  as  he  was  stiff 
and  slow  in  his  movements  I  was  within  seventy  yards 
before  he  got  fairly  under  way.  Dropping  on  one  knee, 
I  fired  and  hit  him  in  the  flank.  At  the  moment  I  could 
not  tell  whether  or  not  I  had  missed  him,  for  he  gave 
no  sign;  but,  running  forward  very  fast,  I  speedily  saw 
him  standing  with  his  head  down.  He  heard  me  and 
again  started,  but  at  the  third  bullet  down  he  went  in  his 
tracks,  the  antlers  clattering  loudly  on  the  branches  of 
a  dead  tree. 

The  snow  was  melting  fast,  and  for  fear  it  might  go 
off  entirely,  so  that  I  could  not  follow  my  back  track,  I 
went  up  the  hillside  upon  which  the  wapiti  lay,  and  tak- 
ing a  dead  tree  dragged  it  down  to  the  bottom,  leaving 


286  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

a  long  furrow.  I  then  repeated  the  operation  on  the 
opposite  hillside,  thus  making  a  trace  which  it  was  im- 
possible for  any  one  coming  up  or  down  the  valley  to 
overlook;  and  having  conned  certain  landmarks  by  which 
the  valley  itself  could  be  identified,  I  struck  toward  camp 
at  a  round  trot;  for  I  knew  that  if  I  did  not  get  into  the 
valley  where  the  tent  lay  before  dark,  I  should  have  to 
pass  the  night  out.  However,  the  last  uncertain  light  of 
dusk  just  enabled  me  to  get  over  a  spur  from  which  I 
could  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  camp-fire,  and  as  I  stumbled 
toward  it  through  the  forest  I  heard  a  couple  of  shots, 
which  showed  that  the  cook  and  packer  were  getting 
anxious  as  to  my  whereabouts. 


CHAPTER  IX 

WILDERNESS  RESERVES;  THE  YELLOWSTONE  PARK 

THE  most  striking  and  melancholy  feature  in  connec- 
tion with  American  big  game  is  the  rapidity  with  which 
it  has  vanished.  When,  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  the  rifle-bearing  hunters  of  the  back- 
woods first  penetrated  the  great  forests  west  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  deer,  elk,  black  bear,  and  even  buffalo,  swarmed 
in  what  are  now  the  States  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee, 
and  the  country  north  of  the  Ohio  was  a  great  and  almost 
virgin  hunting-ground.  From  that  day  to  this  the  shrink- 
age has  gone  on,  only  partially  checked  here  and  there, 
and  never  arrested  as  a  whole.  As  a  matter  of  historical 
accuracy,  however,  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  many 
writers,  in  lamenting  this  extinction  of  the  game,  have 
from  time  to  time  anticipated  or  overstated  the  facts. 
Thus  as  good  an  author  as  Colonel  Richard  Irving  Dodge 
spoke  of  the  buffalo  as  practically  extinct,  while  the  great 
Northern  herd  still  existed  in  countless  thousands.  As 
early  as  1880  sporting  authorities  spoke  not  only  of  the 
buffalo,  but  of  the  elk,  deer,  and  antelope  as  no  longer  to 
be  found  in  plenty;  and  recently  one  of  the  greatest  of 
living  hunters  has  stated  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  to 
find  any  American  wapiti  bearing  heads  comparable  with 
the  red  deer  of  Hungary.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the 

287 


288  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

early  eighties  there  were  still  large  regions  where  every 
species  of  game  that  had  ever  been  known  within  historic 
times  on  our  continent  was  still  to  be  found  as  plentifully 
as  ever.  In  the  early  nineties  there  were  still  big  tracts 
of  wilderness  in  which  this  was  true  of  all  game  except 
the  buffalo ;  for  instance,  it  was  true  of  the  elk  in  portions 
of  northwestern  Wyoming,  of  the  blacktail  in  northwest- 
ern Colorado,  of  the  whitetail  here  and  there  in  the 
Indian  Territory,  and  of  the  antelope  in  parts  of  New 
Mexico.  Even  at  the  present  day  there  are  smaller,  but 
still  considerable,  regions  where  these  four  animals  are 
yet  found  in  abundance;  and  I  have  seen  antlers  of  wapiti 
shot  since  1900  far  surpassing  any  of  which  there  is  record 
from  Hungary.  In  New  England  and  New  York,  as 
well  as  New  Brunswick  and  Nova  Scotia,  the  whitetail 
deer  is  more  plentiful  than  it  was  thirty  years  ago,  and 
in  Maine  (and  to  an  even  greater  extent  in  New  Bruns- 
wick) the  moose,  and  here  and  there  the  caribou,  have,  on 
the  whole,  increased  during  the  same  period.  There  is 
yet  ample  opportunity  for  the  big  game  hunter  in  the 
United  States,  Canada  and  Alaska. 

While  it  is  necessary  to  give  this  word  of  warning  to 
those  who,  in  praising  time  past,  always  forget  the  oppor- 
tunities of  the  present,  it  is  a  thousandfold  more  neces- 
sary to  remember  that  these  opportunities  are,  neverthe- 
less, vanishing;  and  if  we  are  a  sensible  people,  we  will 
make  it  our  business  to  see  that  the  process  of  extinction 
is  arrested.  At  the  present  moment  the  great  herds  of 
caribou  are  being  butchered,  as  in  the  past  the  great  herds 
of  bison  and  wapiti  have  been  butchered.  Every  be- 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  289 

liever  in  manliness,  and  therefore  in  manly  sport,  and 
every  lover  of  nature,  every  man  who  appreciates  the 
majesty  and  beauty  of  the  wilderness  and  of  wild  life, 
should  strike  hands  with  the  far-sighted  men  who  wish 
to  preserve  our  material  resources,  in  the  effort  to  keep 
our  forests  and  our  game  beasts,  game  birds,  and  game 
fish — indeed,  all  the  living  creatures  of  prairie,  and 
woodland,  and  seashore — from  wanton  destruction. 

Above  all,  we  should  realize  that  the  effort  toward 
this  end  is  essentially  a  democratic  movement.  It  is  en- 
tirely in  our  power  as  a  nation  to  preserve  large  tracts  of 
wilderness,  which  are  valueless  for  agricultural  purposes 
and  unfit  for  settlement,  as  playgrounds  for  rich  and  poor 
alike,  and  to  preserve  the  game  so  that  it  shall  continue 
to  exist  for  the  benefit  of  all  lovers  of  nature,  and  to  give 
reasonable  opportunities  for  the  exercise  of  the  skill  of  the 
hunter,  whether  he  is  or  is  not  a  man  of  means.  But  this 
end  can  only  be  achieved  by  wise  laws  and  by  a  resolute 
enforcement  of  the  laws.  Lack  of  such  legislation  and 
administration  will  result  in  harm  to  all  of  us,  but  most 
of  all  in  harm  to  the  nature  lover  who  does  not  possess 
vast  wealth.  Already  there  have  sprung  up  here  and 
there  through  the  country,  as  in  New  Hampshire  and  the 
Adirondacks,  large  private  preserves.  These  preserves 
often  serve  a  useful  purpose,  and  should  be  encouraged 
within  reasonable  limits;  but  it  would  be  a  misfortune 
if  they  increased  beyond  a  certain  extent  or  if  they  took 
the  place  of  great  tracts  of  wild  land,  which  continue  as 
such  either  because  of  their  very  nature,  or  because  of 
the  protection  of  the  State  exerted  in  the  form  of  making 


290  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

them  State  or  national  parks  or  reserves.  It  is  foolish  to 
regard  proper  game  laws  as  undemocratic,  unrepublican. 
On  the  contrary,  they  are  essentially  in  the  interests  of 
the  people  as  a  whole,  because  it  is  only  through  their 
enactment  and  enforcement  that  the  people  as  a  whole 
can  preserve  the  game  and  can  prevent  its  becoming 
purely  the  property  of  the  rich,  who  are  able  to  create  and 
maintain  extensive  private  preserves.  The  wealthy  man 
can  get  hunting  anyhow,  but  the  man  of  small  means  is 
dependent  solely  upon  wise  and  well-executed  game  laws 
for  his  enjoyment  of  the  sturdy  pleasure  of  the  chase.  In 
Maine,  in  Vermont,  in  the  Adirondacks,  even  in  parts  of 
Massachusetts  and  on  Long  Island,  people  have  waked 
up  to  this  fact,  particularly  so  far  as  the  common  white- 
tail  deer  is  concerned,  and  in  Maine  also  as  regards  the 
moose  and  caribou.  The  effect  is  shown  in  the  increase 
in  these  animals.  Such  game  protection  results,  in  the 
first  place,  in  securing  to  the  people  who  live  in  the  neigh- 
borhood permanent  opportunities  for  hunting;  and  in  the 
next  place,  it  provides  no  small  source  of  wealth  to  the 
locality  because  of  the  visitors  which  it  attracts.  A  deer 
wild  in  the  woods  is  worth  to  the  people  of  the  neighbor- 
hood many  times  the  value  of  its  carcass,  because  of  the 
way  it  attracts  sportsmen,  who  give  employment  and  leave 
money  behind  them. 

True  sportsmen,  worthy  of  the  name,  men  who  shoot 
only  in  season  and  in  moderation,  do  no  harm  whatever 
to  game.  The  most  objectionable  of  all  game  destroyers 
is,  of  course,  the  kind  of  game  butcher  who  simply  kills 
for  the  sake  of  the  record  of  slaughter,  who  leaves  deer 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  291 

and  ducks  and  prairie-chickens  to  rot  after  he  has  slain 
them.  Such  a  man  is  wholly  obnoxious;  and,  indeed,  so 
is  any  man  who  shoots  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a 
record  of  the  amount  of  game  killed.  To  my  mind  this 
is  one  very  unfortunate  feature  of  what  is  otherwise  the 
admirably  sportsmanlike  English  spirit  in  these  matters. 
The  custom  of  shooting  great  bags  of  deer,  grouse,  par- 
tridges, and  pheasants,  the  keen  rivalry  in  making  such 
bags,  and  their  publication  in  sporting  journals,  are 
symptoms  of  a  spirit  which  is  most  unhealthy  from  every 
standpoint.  It  is  to  be  earnestly  hoped  that  every  Ameri- 
can hunting  or  fishing  club  will  strive  to  inculcate  among 
its  own  members,  and  in  the  minds  of  the  general  pub- 
lic, that  anything  like  an  excessive  bag,  any  destruction 
for  the  sake  of  making  a  record,  is  to  be  severely  rep- 
robated. 

But  after  all,  this  kind  of  perverted  sportsman,  un- 
worthy though  he  be,  is  not  the  chief  actor  in  the  de- 
struction of  our  game.  The  professional  skin  or  market 
hunter  is  the  real  offender.  Yet  he  is  of  all  others  the 
man  who  would  ultimately  be  most  benefited  by  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  game.  The  frontier  settler,  in  a  thor- 
oughly wild  country,  is  certain  to  kill  game  for  his  own 
use.  As  long  as  he  does  no  more  than  this,  it  is  hard 
to  blame  him;  although  if  he  is  awake  to  his  own  interests 
he  will  soon  realize  that  to  him,  too,  the  live  deer  is  worth 
far  more  than  the  dead  deer,  because  of  the  way  in  which 
it  brings  money  into  the  wilderness.  The  professional 
market  hunter  who  kills  game  for  the  hide,  or  for  the 
feathers,  or  for  the  meat,  or  to  sell  antlers  and  oth*r 


292  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

trophies ;  the  market  men  who  put  game  in  cold  storage ; 
and  the  rich  people,  who  are  content  to  buy  what  they 
have  not  the  skill  to  get  by  their  own  exertions — these 
are  the  men  who  are  the  real  enemies  of  game.  Where 
there  is  no  law  which  checks  the  market  hunters,  the 
inevitable  result  of  their  butchery  is  that  the  game  is 
completely  destroyed,  and  with  it  their  own  means  of 
livelihood.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they  were  willing  to 
preserve  it,  they  could  make  much  more  money  by  acting 
as  guides.  In  northwestern  Colorado,  at  the  present  mo- 
ment, there  are  still  blacktail  deer  in  abundance,  and  some 
elk  are  left.  Colorado  has  fairly  good  game  laws,  but 
they  are  indifferently  enforced.  The  country  in  which 
the  game  is  found  can  probably  never  support  any  but 
a  very  sparse  population,  and  a  large  portion  of  the  sum- 
mer range  is  practically  useless  for  settlement.  If  the 
people  of  Colorado  generally,  and  above  all  the  people 
of  the  counties  in  which  the  game  is  located,  would  res- 
olutely cooperate  with  those  of  their  own  number  who 
are  already  alive  to  the  importance  of  preserving  the 
game,  it  could,  without  difficulty,  be  kept  always  as  abun- 
dant as  it  now  is,  and  this  beautiful  region  would  be  a 
permanent  health  resort  and  playground  for  the  people 
of  a  large  part  of  the  Union.  Such  action  would  be  a 
benefit  to  every  one,  but  it  would  be  a  benefit  most  of 
all  to  the  people  of  the  immediate  locality. 

The  practical  common  sense  of  the  American  people 
has  been  in  no  way  made  more  evident  during  the  last 
few  years  than  by  the  creation  and  use  of  a  series  of 
large  land  reserves — situated  for  the  most  part  on  the 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  293 

great  plains  and  among  the  mountains  of  the  West — in- 
tended to  keep  the  forests  from  destruction,  and  therefore 
to  conserve  the  water  supply.  These  reserves  are,  and 
should  be,  created  primarily  for  economic  purposes.  The 
semi-arid  regions  can  only  support  a  reasonable  popula- 
tion under  conditions  of  the  strictest  economy  and  wisdom 
in  the  use  of  the  water  supply,  and  in  addition  to  their 
other  economic  uses  the  forests  are  indispensably  neces- 
sary for  the  preservation  of  the  water  supply  and  for 
rendering  possible  its  useful  distribution  throughout  the 
proper  seasons.  In  addition,  however,  to  this  economic 
use  of  the  wilderness,  selected  portions  of  it  have  been 
kept  here  and  there  in  a  state  of  nature,  not  merely  for 
the  sake  of  preserving  the  forests  and  the  water,  but  for 
the  sake  of  preserving  all  its  beauties  and  wonders  un- 
spoiled by  greedy  and  short-sighted  vandalism.  What 
has  been  actually  accomplished  in  the  Yellowstone  Park 
affords  the  best  possible  object-lesson  as  to  the  desirability 
and  practicability  of  establishing  such  wilderness  re- 
serves. This  reserve  is  a  natural  breeding-ground  and 
nursery  for  those  stately  and  beautiful  haunters  of  the 
wilds  which  have  now  vanished  from  so  many  of  the  great 
forests,  the  vast  lonely  plains,  and  the  high  mountain 
ranges,  where  they  once  abounded. 

On  April  8,  1903,  John  Burroughs  and  I  reached  the 
Yellowstone  Park,  and  were  met  by  Major  John  Pitcher 
of  the  Regular  Army,  the  Superintendent  of  the  Park. 
The  Major  and  I  forthwith  took  horses;  he  telling  me 
that  he  could  show  me  a  good  deal  of  game  while  riding 
up  to  his  house  at  the  Mammoth  Hot  Springs.  Hardly 


294  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

had  we  left  the  little  town  of  Gardiner  and  gotten  within 
the  limits  of  the  Park  before  we  saw  prongbuck.  There 
was  a  band  of  at  least  a  hundred  feeding  some  distance 
from  the  road.  We  rode  leisurely  toward  them.  They 
were  tame  compared  to  their  kindred  in  unprotected 
places;  that  is,  it  was  easy  to  ride  within  fair  rifle  range 
of  them ;  and  though  they  were  not  familiar  in  the  sense 
that  we  afterwards  found  the  bighorn  and  the  deer  to 
be  familiar,  it  was  extraordinary  to  find  them  showing 
such  familiarity  almost  literally  in  the  streets  of  a  fron- 
tier town.  It  spoke  volumes  for  the  good  sense  and 
law-abiding  spirit  of  the  people  of  the  town.  During 
the  two  hours  following  my  entry  into  the  Park  we  rode 
around  the  plains  and  lower  slopes  of  the  foothills  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  mouth  of  the  Gardiner  and 
we  saw  several  hundred — probably  a  thousand  all  told 
— of  these  antelopes.  Major  Pitcher  informed  me  that 
all  the  pronghorns  in  the  Park  wintered  in  this  neigh- 
borhood. Toward  the  end  of  April  or  the  first  of  May 
they  migrate  back  to  their  summering  homes  in  the 
open  valleys  along  the  Yellowstone  and  in  the  plains 
south  of  the  Golden  Gate.  While  migrating  they  go 
over  the  mountains  and  through  forests  if  occasion  de- 
mands. Although  there  are  plenty  of  coyotes  in  the  Park, 
there  are  no  big  wolves,  and  save  for  very  infrequent 
poachers  the  only  enemy  of  the  antelope,  as  indeed  the 
only  enemy  of  all  the  game,  is  the  cougar. 

Cougars,  known  in  the  Park,  as  elsewhere  through  the 
West, as  "mountain  lions,"  are  plentiful,  having  increased 
in  numbers  of  recent  years.  Except  in  the  neighborhood 


. 


.ml 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  295 

of  the  Gardiner  River,  that  is  within  a  few  miles  of  Mam- 
moth Hot  Springs,  I  found  them  feeding  on  elk,  which 
in  the  Park  far  outnumber  all  other  game  put  together, 
being  so  numerous  that  the  ravages  of  the  cougars  are  of 
no  real  damage  to  the  herds.  But  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  Mammoth  Hot  Springs  the  -cougars  are  noxious 
because  of  the  antelope,  mountain  sheep,  and  deer  which 
they  kill;  and  the  Superintendent  has  imported  some 
hounds  with  which  to  hunt  them.  These  hounds  are 
managed  by  Buffalo  Jones,  a  famous  old  plainsman,  who 
is  now  in  the  Park  taking  care  of  the  buffalo.  On  this 
first  day  of  my  visit  to  the  Park  I  came  across  the  car- 
casses of  a  deer  and  of  an  antelope  which  the  cougars  had 
killed.  On  the  great  plains  cougars  rarely  get  antelope, 
but  here  the  country  is  broken  so  that  the  big  cats  can 
make  their  stalks  under  favorable  circumstances.  To 
deer  and  mountain  sheep  the  cougar  is  a  most  dangerous 
enemy — much  more  so  than  the  wolf. 

The  antelope  we  saw  were  usually  in  bands  of  from 
twenty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty,  and  they  travelled  strung 
out  almost  in  single  file,  though  those  in  the  rear  would 
sometimes  bunch  up.  I  did  not  try  to  stalk  them,  but 
got  as  near  them  as  I  could  on  horseback.  The  closest 
approach  I  was  able  to  make  was  to  within  about  eighty 
yards  of  two  which  were  by  themselves — I  think  a  doe 
and  a  last  year's  fawn.  As  I  was  riding  up  to  them, 
although  they  looked  suspiciously  at  me,  one  actually  lay 
do  ^n.  When  I  was  passing  them  at  about  eighty  yards' 
distance  the  big  one  became  nervous,  gave  a  sudden  jump, 
and  away  the  two  went  at  full  speed. 


296  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

Why  the  prongbucks  were  so  comparatively  shy  I 
do  not  know,  for  right  on  the  ground  with  them  we  came 
upon  deer,  and,  in  the  immediate  neighborhood,  moun- 
tain sheep,  which  were  absurdly  tame.  The  mountain 
sheep  were  nineteen  in  number,  for  the  most  part  does 
and  yearlings  with  a  couple  of  three-year-old  rams,  but 
not  a  single  big  fellow — for  the  big  fellows  at  this  sea- 
son are  off  by  themselves,  singly  or  in  little  bunches,  high 
up  in  the  mountains.  The  band  I  saw  was  tame  to  a 
degree  matched  by  but  few  domestic  animals. 

They  were  feeding  on  the  brink  of  a  steep  washout 
at  the  upper  edge  of  one  of  the  benches  on  the  moun- 
tain-side just  below  where  the  abrupt  slope  began.  They 
were  alongside  a  little  gully  with  sheer  walls.  I  rode 
my  horse  to  within  forty  yards  of  them,  one  of  them  occa- 
sionally looking  up  and  at  once  continuing  to  feed.  Then 
they  moved  slowly  off  and  leisurely  crossed  the  gully  to 
the  other  side.  I  dismounted,  walked  around  the  head 
of  the  gully,  and  moving  cautiously,  but  in  plain  sight, 
came  closer  and  closer  until  I  was  within  twenty  yards, 
when  I  sat  down  on  a  stone  and  spent  certainly  twenty 
minutes  looking  at  them.  They  paid  hardly  any  atten- 
tion to  my  presence — certainly  no  more  than  well-treated 
domestic  creatures  would  pay.  One  of  the  rams  rose  on 
his  hind  legs,  leaning  his  fore-hoofs  against  a  little  pine 
tree,  and  browsed  the  ends  of  the  budding  branches.  The 
others  grazed  on  the  short  grass  and  herbage  or  lay  down 
and  rested — two  of  the  yearlings  several  times  playfully 
butting  at  one  another.  Now  and  then  one  would  glance 
in  my  direction  without  the  slightest  sign  of  fear — barely 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  297 

even  of  curiosity.  I  have  no  question  whatever  but  that 
with  a  little  patience  this  particular  band  could  be  made 
to  feed  out  of  a  man's  hand.  Major  Pitcher  intends 
during  the  coming  winter  to  feed  them  alfalfa — for  game 
animals  of  several  kinds  have  become  so  plentiful  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Hot  Springs,  and  the  Major  has 
grown  so  interested  in  them,  that  he  wishes  to  do  some- 
thing toward  feeding  them  during  the  severe  weather. 
After  I  had  looked  at  the  sheep  to  my  heart's  content, 
I  walked  back  to  my  horse,  my  departure  arousing  as 
little  interest  as  my  advent. 

Soon  after  leaving  them  we  began  to  come  across 
blacktail  deer,  singly,  in  twos  and  threes,  and  in  small 
bunches  of  a  dozen  or  so.  They  were  almost  as  tame 
as  the  mountain  sheep,  but  not  quite.  That  is,  they  al- 
ways looked  alertly  at  me,  and  though  if  I  stayed  still 
they  would  graze,  they  kept  a  watch  over  my  movements 
and  usually  moved  slowly  off  when  I  got  within  less  than 
forty  yards  of  them.  Up  to  that  distance,  whether  on 
foot  or  on  horseback,  they  paid  but  little  heed  to  me,  and 
on  several  occasions  they  allowed  me  to  come  much 
closer.  Like  the  bighorn,  the  blacktails  at  this  time  were 
grazing,  not  browsing;  but  I  occasionally  saw  them  nib- 
ble some  willow  buds.  During  the  winter  they  had  been 
browsing.  As  we  got  close  to  the  Hot  Springs  we  came 
across  several  whitetail  in  an  open,  marshy  meadow. 
They  were  not  quite  as  tame  as  the  blacktail,  although 
without  any  difficulty  I  walked  up  to  within  fifty  yards 
of  them.  Handsome  though  the  blacktail  is,  the  white- 
tail  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all  deer  when  in  motion, 


298  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

because  of  the  springy,  bounding  grace  of  its  trot  and 
canter,  and  the  way  it  carries  its  head  and  white  flag 
aloft. 

Before  reaching  the  Mammoth  Hot  Springs  we  also 
saw  a  number  of  ducks  in  the  little  pools  and  on  the 
Gardiner.  Some  of  them  were  rather  shy.  Others — 
probably  those  which,  as  Major  Pitcher  informed  me, 
had  spent  the  winter  there — were  as  tame  as  barn-yard 
fowls. 

Just  before  reaching  the  post  the  Major  took  me  into 
the  big  field  where  Buffalo  Jones  had  some  Texas  and 
Flathead  Lake  buffalo — bulls  and  cows — which  he  was 
tending  with  solicitous  care.  The  original  stock  of  buf; 
falo  in  the  Park  have  now  been  reduced  to  fifteen  or 
twenty  individuals,  and  their  blood  is  being  recruited  by 
the  addition  of  buffalo  purchased  out  of  the  Flathead 
Lake  and  Texas  Panhandle  herds.  The  buffalo  were  at 
first  put  within  a  wire  fence,  which,  when  it  was  built, 
was  found  to  have  included  both  blacktail  and  whitetail 
deer.  A  bull  elk  was  also  put  in  with  them  at  one  time, 
he  having  met  with  some  accident  which  made  the  Major 
and  Buffalo  Jones  bring  him  in  to  doctor  him.  When 
he  recovered  his  health  he  became  very  cross.  Not  only 
would  he  attack  men,  but  also  buffalo,  even  the  old  and 
surly  master  bull,  thumping  them  savagely  with  his  ant- 
lers if  they  did  anything  to  which  he  objected.  The 
buffalo  are  now  breeding  well. 

When  I  reached  the  post  and  dismounted  at  the  Ma- 
jor's house,  I  supposed  my  experiences  with  wild  beasts 
were  ended  for  the  day;  but  this  was  an  error.  The 


WILDERNESS  .RESERVES  299 

quarters  of  the  officers  and  men  and  the  various  hotel 
buildings,  stables,  residences  of  the  civilian  officials,  etc., 
almost  completely  surround  the  big  parade-ground  at 
the  post,  near  the  middle  of  which  stands  the  flag-pole, 
while  the  gun  used  for  morning  and  evening  salutes  is 
well  off  to  one  side.  There  are  large  gaps  between  some 
of  the  buildings,  and  Major  Pitcher  informed  me  that 
throughout  the  winter  he  had  been  leaving  alfalfa  on  the 
parade-grounds,  and  that  numbers  of  blacktail  deer  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  visiting  it  every  day,  sometimes  as 
many  as  seventy  being  on  the  parade-ground  at  once. 
As  spring-time  came  on  the  numbers  diminished.  How- 
ever, in  mid-afternoon,  while  I  was  writing  in  my  room 
in  Major  Pitcher's  house,  on  looking  out  of  the  win- 
dow I  saw  five  deer  on  the  parade-ground.  They  were 
as  tame  as  so  many  Alderney  cows,  and  when  I  walked 
out  I  got  within  twenty  yards  of  them  without  any  dif- 
ficulty. It  was  most  amusing  to  see  them  as  the  time 
approached  for  the  sunset  gun  to  be  fired.  The  notes  of 
the  trumpeter  attracted  their  attention  at  once.  They 
all  looked  at  him  eagerly.  One  of  them  resumed  feeding, 
and  paid  no  attention  whatever  either  to  the  bugle,  the 
gun  or  the  flag.  The  other  four,  however,  watched  the 
preparations  for  firing  the  gun  with  an  intent  gaze,  and 
at  the  sound  of  the  report  gave  two  or  three  jumps;  then 
instantly  wheeling,  looked  up  at  the  flag  as  it  came  down. 
This  they  seemed  to  regard  as  something  rather  more  sus- 
picious than  the  gun,  and  they  remained  very  much  on 
the  alert  until  the  ceremony  was  over.  Once  it  was  fin- 
ished, they  resumed  feeding  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 


3oo  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

Before  it  was  dark  they  trotted  away  from  the  parade- 
ground  back  to  the  mountains. 

The  next  day  we  rode  off  to  the  Yellowstone  River, 
camping  some  miles  below  Cottonwood  Creek.  It  was 
a  very  pleasant  camp.  Major  Pitcher,  an  old  friend,  had 
a  first-class  pack-train,  so  that  we  were  as  comfortable 
as  possible,  and  on  such  a  trip  there  could  be  no  pleasanter 
or  more  interesting  companion  than  John  Burroughs — 
"  Oom  John,"  as  we  soon  grew  to  call  him.  Where 
our  tents  were  pitched  the  bottom  of  the  valley  was  nar- 
row, the  mountains  rising  steep  and  cliff-broken  on  either 
side.  There  were  quite  a  number  of  blacktail  in  the 
valley,  which  were  tame  and  unsuspicious,  although  not 
nearly  as  much  so  as  those  in  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  the  Mammoth  Hot  Springs.  One  mid-afternoon  three 
of  them  swam  across  the  river  a  hundred  yards  above  our 
camp.  But  the  characteristic  animals  of  the  region  were 
the  elk — the  wapiti.  They  were  certainly  more  numer- 
ous than  when  I  was  last  through  the  Park  twelve  years 
before. 

In  the  summer  the  elk  spread  all  over  the  interior  of 
the  Park.  As  winter  approaches  they  divide,  some  going 
north  and  others  south.  The  southern  bands,  which,  at 
a  guess,  may  possibly  include  ten  thousand  individuals, 
winter  out  of  the  Park,  for  the  most  part  in  Jackson's 
Hole — though  of  course  here  and  there  within  the  limits 
of  the  Park  a  few  elk  may  spend  both  winter  and  summer 
in  an  unusually  favorable  location.  It  was  the  members 
of  the  northern  band  that  I  met.  During  the  winter  time 
they  are  nearly  stationary,  each  band  staying  within  a  very 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  301 

few  miles  of  the  same  place,  and  from  their  size  and  the 
open  nature  of  their  habitat  it  is  almost  as  easy  to  count 
them  as  if  they  were  cattle.  From  a  spur  of  Bison  Peak 
one  day,  Major  Pitcher,  the  guide  Elwood  Hofer,  John 
Burroughs  and  I  spent  about  four  hours  with  the  glasses 
counting  and  estimating  the  different  herds  within  sight. 
After  most  careful  work  and  cautious  reduction  of  esti- 
mates in  each  case  to  the  minimum  the  truth  would  per- 
mit, we  reckoned  three  thousand  head  of  elk,  all  lying 
or  feeding  and  all  in  sight  at  the  same  time.  An  estimate 
of  some  fifteen  thousand  for  the  number  of  elk  in  these 
Northern  bands  cannot  be  far  wrong.  These  bands  do 
not  go  out  of  the  Park  at  all,  but  winter  just  within  its 
northern  boundary.  At  the  time  when  we  saw  them,  the 
snow  had  vanished  from  the  bottoms  of  the  valleys  and 
the  lower  slopes  of  the  mountains,  but  remained  as  con- 
tinuous sheets  farther  up  their  sides.  The  elk  were  for 
the  most  part  found  up  on  the  snow  slopes,  occasionally 
singly  or  in  small  gangs — more  often  in  bands  of  from 
fifty  to  a  couple  of  hundred.  The  larger  bulls  were  high- 
est up  the  mountains  and  generally  in  small  troops  by 
themselves,  although  occasionally  one  or  two  would  be 
found  associating  with  a  big  herd  of  cows,  yearlings,  and 
two-year-olds.  Many  of  the  bulls  had  shed  their  antlers; 
many  had  not.  During  the  winter  the  elk  had  evidently 
done  much  browsing,  but  at  this  time  they  were  grazing 
almost  exclusively,  and  seemed  by  preference  to  seek  out 
the  patches  of  old  grass  which  were  last  left  bare  by  the 
retreating  snow.  The  bands  moved  about  very  little,  and 
if  one  were  seen  one  day  it  was  generally  possible  to  find 


302 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


it  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the  same  spot  the  next 
day,  and  certainly  not  more  than  a  mile  or  two  off.  There 
were  severe  frosts  at  night,  and  occasionally  light  flurries 
of  snow;  but  the  hardy  beasts  evidently  cared  nothing  for 
any  but  heavy  storms,  and  seemed  to  prefer  to  lie  in  the 
snow  rather  than  upon  the  open  ground.  They  fed  at 
irregular  hours  throughout  the  day,  just  like  cattle;  one 
band  might  be  lying  down  while  another  was  feeding. 
While  travelling  they  usually  went  almost  in  single  file. 
Evidently  the  winter  had  weakened  them,  and  they  were 
not  in  condition  for  running;  for  on  the  one  or  two  occa- 
sions when  I  wanted  to  see  them  close  up  I  ran  right  into 
them  on  horseback,  both  on  level  plains  and  going  up 
hill  along  the  sides  of  rather  steep  mountains.  One  band 
in  particular  I  practically  rounded  up  for  John  Bur- 
roughs, finally  getting  them  to  stand  in  a  huddle  while 
he  and  I  sat  on  our  horses  less  than  fifty  yards  off.  After 
they  had  run  a  little  distance  they  opened  their  mouths 
wide  and  showed  evident  signs  of  distress. 

We  came  across  a  good  many  carcasses.  Two,  a  bull 
and  a  cow,  had  died  from  scab.  Over  half  the  remainder 
had  evidently  perished  from  cold  or  starvation.  The 
others,  including  a  bull,  three  cows  and  a  score  of  year- 
lings, had  been  killed  by  cougars.  In  the  Park  the  cou- 
gar is  at  present  their  only  animal  foe.  The  cougars 
were  preying  on  nothing  but  elk  in  the  Yellowstone  Val- 
ley, and  kept  hanging  about  the  neighborhood  of  the  big 
bands.  Evidently  they  usually  selected  some  outlying 
yearling,  stalked  it  as  it  lay  or  as  it  fed,  and  seized  it 
by  the  head  and  throat.  The  bull  which  they  killed  was 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES 


3°3 


in  a  little  open  valley  by  himself,  many  miles  from  any 
other  elk.  The  cougar  which  killed  it,  judging  from  its 
tracks,  was  a  big  male.  As  the  elk  were  evidently  rather 
too  numerous  for  the  feed,  I  do  not  think  the  cougars 
were  doing  any  damage. 

Coyotes  are  plentiful,  but  the  elk  evidently  have  no 
dread  of  them.  One  day  I  crawled  up  to  within  fifty 
yards  of  a  band  of  elk  lying  down.  A  coyote  was  walking 
about  among  them,  and  beyond  an  occasional  look  they 
paid  no  heed  to  him.  He  did  not  venture  to  go  within 
fifteen  or  twenty  paces  of  any  one  of  them.  In  fact,  ex- 
cept the  cougar,  I  saw  but  one  living  thing  attempt  to 
molest  the  elk.  This  was  a  golden  eagle.  We  saw  sev- 
eral of  these  great  birds.  On  one  occasion  we  had  ridden 
out  to  the  foot  of  a  sloping  mountain  side,  dotted  over 
with  bands  and  strings  of  elk  amounting  in  the  aggre- 
gate probably  to  a  thousand  head.  Most  of  the  bands 
were  above  the  snow-line — some  appearing  away  back 
toward  the  ridge  crests,  and  looking  as  small  as  mice. 
There  was  one  band  well  below  the  snow-line,  and  tow- 
ard this  we  rode.  While  the  elk  were  not  shy  or  wary, 
in  the  sense  that  a  hunter  would  use  the  words,  they  were 
by  no  means  as  familiar  as  the  deer;  and  this  particular 
band  of  elk,  some  twenty  or  thirty  in  all,  watched  us 
with  interest  as  we  approached.  When  we  were  still  half 
a  mile  off  they  suddenly  started  to  run  toward  us,  evi- 
dently frightened  by  something.  They  ran  quartering, 
and  when  about  four  hundred  yards  away  we  saw  that 
an  eagle  was  after  them.  Soon  it  swooped,  and  a  year- 
ling in  the  rear,  weakly,  and  probably  frightened  by  the 


304  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

swoop,  turned  a  complete  somersault,  and  when  it  re- 
covered its  feet  stood  still.  The  great  bird  followed  the 
rest  of  the  band  across  a  little  ridge,  beyond  which  they 
disappeared.  Then  it  returned,  soaring  high  in  the  heav- 
ens, and  after  two  or  three  wide  circles,  swooped  down 
at  the  solitary  yearling,  its  legs  hanging  down.  We 
halted  at  two  hundred  yards  to  see  the  end.  But  the  eagle 
could  not  quite  make  up  its. mind  to  attack.  Twice  it 
hovered  within  a  foot  or  two  of  the  yearling's  head, 
again  flew  off  and  again  returned.  Finally  the  yearling 
trotted  off  after  the  rest  of  the  band,  and  the  eagle  re- 
turned to  the  upper  air.  Later  we  found  the  carcass  of 
a  yearling,  with  two  eagles,  not  to  mention  ravens  and 
magpies,  feeding  on  it;  but  I  could  not  tell  whether  they 
had  themselves  killed  the  yearling  or  not. 

Here  and  there  in  the  region  where  the  elk  were  abun- 
dant we  came  upon  horses,  which  for  some  reason  had 
been  left  out  through  the  winter.  They  were  much 
wilder  than  the  elk.  Evidently  the  Yellowstone  Park  is 
a  natural  nursery  and  breeding-ground  of  the  elk,  which 
here,  as  said  above,  far  outnumber  all  the  other  game  put 
together.  In  the  winter,  if  they  cannot  get  to  open  water, 
they  eat  snow;  but  in  several  places  where  there  had  been 
springs  which  kept  open  all  winter,  we  could  see  by  the 
tracks  that  they  had  been  regularly  used  by  bands  of  elk. 
The  men  working  at  the  new  road  along  the  face  of  the 
cliffs  beside  the  Yellowstone  River  near  Tower  Falls 
informed  me  that  in  October  enormous  droves  of  elk 
coming  from  the  interior  of  the  Park  and  travelling 
northward  to  the  lower  lands  had  crossed  the  Yellow- 


ELK   IN   SNOW 


\    •'  1 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES 


3°S 


stone  just  above  Tower  Falls.  Judging  by  their  descrip- 
tion, the  elk  had  crossed  by  thousands  in  an  uninter- 
rupted stream,  the  passage  taking  many  hours.  In  fact 
nowadays  these  Yellowstone  elk  are,  with  the  exception 
of  the  Arctic  caribou,  the  only  American  game  which 
at  times  travel  in  immense  droves  like  the  buffalo  of  the 
old  days. 

A  couple  of  days  after  leaving  Cottonwood  Creek — 
where  we  had  spent  several  days — we  camped  at  the  Yel- 
lowstone Canyon  below  Tower  Falls.  Here  we  saw  a 
second  band  of  mountain  sheep,  numbering  only  eight — 
none  of  them  old  rams.  We  were  camped  on  the  west 
side  of  the  canyon;  the  sheep  had  their  abode  on  the  op- 
posite side,  where  they  had  spent  the  winter.  It  has 
recently  been  customary  among  some  authorities,  espe- 
cially the  English  hunters  and  naturalists  who  have 
written  of  the  Asiatic  sheep,  to  speak  as  if  sheep  were 
naturally  creatures  of  the  plains  rather  than  mountain 
climbers.  I  know  nothing  of  the  Old  World  sheep,  but 
the  Rocky  Mountain  bighorn  is  to  the  full  as  character- 
istic a  mountain  animal,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  as 
the  chamois,  and,  I  think,  as  the  ibex.  These  sheep 
were  well  known  to  the  road  builders,  who  had  spent  the 
winter  in  the  locality.  They  told  me  they  never  went 
back  on  the  plains,  but  throughout  the  winter  had  spent 
their  days  and  nights  on  the  top  of  the  cliff  and  along 
its  face.  This  cliff  was  an  alternation  of  sheer  precipices 
and  very  steep  inclines.  When  coated  with  ice  it  would 
be  difficult  to  imagine  an  uglier  bit  of  climbing;  but 
throughout  the  winter,  and  even  in  the  wildest  storms, 


306  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  sheep  had  habitually  gone  down  it  to  drink  at  the 
water  below.  When  we  first  saw  them  they  were  lying 
sunning  themselves  on  the  edge  of  the  canyon,  where  the 
rolling  grassy  country  behind  it  broke  off  into  the  sheer 
descent.  It  was  mid-afternoon  and  they  were  under  some 
pines.  After  a  while  they  got  up  and  began  to  graze, 
and  soon  hopped  unconcernedly  down  the  side  of  the  cliff 
until  they  were  half-way  to  the  bottom.  They  then 
grazed  along  the  sides,  and  spent  some  time  licking  at 
a  place  where  there  was  evidently  a  mineral  deposit.  Be- 
fore dark  they  all  lay  down  again  on  a  steeply  inclined 
jutting  spur  midway  between  the  top  and  bottom  of  the 
canyon. 

Next  morning  I  thought  I  would  like  to  see  them 
close  up,  so  I  walked  down  three  or  four  miles  below 
where  the  canyon  ended,  crossed  the  stream,  and  came  up 
the  other  side  until  I  got  on  what  was  literally  the  stamp- 
ing-ground of  the  sheep.  Their  tracks  showed  that  they 
had  spent  their  time  for  many  weeks,  and  probably  for 
all  the  winter,  within  a  very  narrow  radius.  For  perhaps 
a  mile  and  a  half,  or  two  miles  at  the  very  outside,  they 
had  wandered  to  and  fro  on  the  summit  of  the  canyon, 
making  what  was  almost  a  well-beaten  path ;  always  very 
near  and  usually  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  and  hardly  ever 
going  more  than  a  few  yards  back  into  the  grassy  plain- 
and-hill  country.  Their  tracks  and  dung  covered  the 
ground.  They  had  also  evidently  descended  into  the 
depths  of  the  canyon  wherever  there  was  the  slightest 
break  or  even  lowering  in  the  upper  line  of  the  basalt 
cliffs.  Although  mountain  sheep  often  browse  in  winter, 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES 


3°7 


I  saw  but  few  traces  of  browsing  here;  probably  on  the 
sheer  cliff  side  they  always  get  some  grazing. 

When  I  spied  the  band  they  were  lying  not  far  from 
the  spot  in  which  they  had  lain  the  day  before,  and  in 
the  same  position  on  the  brink  of  the  canyon.  They  saw 
me  and  watched  me  with  interest  when  I  was  two  hun- 
dred yards  off,  but  they  let  me  get  up  within  forty  yards 
and  sit  down  on  a  large  stone  to  look  at  them,  without 
running  off.  Most  of  them  were  lying  down,  but  a  cou- 
ple were  feeding  steadily  throughout  the  time  I  watched 
them.  Suddenly  one  took  the  alarm  and  dashed  straight 
over  the  cliff,  the  others  all  following  at  once.  I  ran 
after  them  to  the  edge  in  time  to  see  the  last  yearling 
drop  off  the  edge  of  the  basalt  cliff  and  stop  short  on  the 
sheer  slope  below,  while  the  stones  dislodged  by  his  hoofs 
rattled  down  the  canyon.  They  all  looked  up  at  me  with 
great  interest,  and  then  strolled  off  to  the  edge  of  a  jut- 
ting spur  and  lay  down  almost  directly  underneath  me 
and  some  fifty  yards  off.  That  evening  on  my  return  to 
camp  we  watched  the  band  make  its  way  right  down  to 
the  river  bed,  going  over  places  where  it  did  not  seem 
possible  a  four-footed  creature  could  pass.  They  halted 
to  graze  here  and  there,  and  down  the  worst  places  they 
went  very  fast  with  great  bounds.  It  was  a  marvellous 
exhibition  of  climbing. 

After  we  had  finished  this  horseback  trip  we  went 
on  sleds  and  skis  to  the  upper  Geyser  Basin  and  the  Falls 
of  the  Yellowstone.  Although  it  was  the  third  week  in 
April,  the  snow  was  still  several  feet  deep,  and  only 
thoroughly  trained  snow  horses  could  have  taken  the 


308  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

sleighs  along,  while  around  the  Yellowstone  Falls  it  was 
possible  to  move  only  on  snowshoes.  There  was  little 
life  in  those  woods.  In  the  upper  basin  I  caught  a 
meadow  mouse  on  the  snow;  I  afterwards  sent  it  to  Hart 
Merriam,  who  told  me  it  was  of  a  species  he  had  de- 
scribed from  Idaho,  Microtus  nanus;  it  had  not  been 
previously  found  in  the  Yellowstone  region.  We  saw  an 
occasional  pine  squirrel,  snowshoe  rabbit  or  marten;  and 
in  the  open  meadows  around  the  hot  waters  there  were 
Canada  geese  and  ducks  of  several  species,  and  now  and 
then  a  coyote.  Around  camp  Clark's  crows  and  Stellar's 
jays,  and  occasionally  magpies,  came  to  pick  at  the  refuse; 
and  of  course  they  were  accompanied  by  the  whiskey 
jacks,  which  behaved  with  their  usual  astounding  famil- 
iarity. At  Norris  Geyser  Basin  there  was  a  perfect 
chorus  of  bird  music  from  robins,  western  purple  finches, 
juncos  and  mountain  bluebirds.  In  the  woods  there  were 
mountain  chickadees  and  pygmy  nuthatches,  together 
with  an  occasional  woodpecker.  In  the  northern  coun- 
try we  had  come  across  a  very  few  blue  grouse  and  ruffed 
grouse,  both  as  tame  as  possible.  We  had  seen  a  pygmy 
owl  no  larger  than  a  robin  sitting  on  the  top  of  a  pine  in 
broad  daylight,  and  uttering  at  short  intervals  a  queer 
un-owl-like  cry. 

The  birds  that  interested  us  most  were  the  solitaires, 
and  especially  the  dippers  or  water-ousels.  We  were 
fortunate  enough  to  hear  the  solitaires  sing  not  only  when 
perched  on  trees,  but  on  the  wing,  soaring  over  a  great 
canyon.  They  are  striking  birds  in  every  way,  and  their 
habit  of  singing  while  soaring,  and  their  song,  are  alike 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  309 

noteworthy.  Once  I  heard  a  solitaire  singing  at  the  top 
of  a  canyon,  and  an  ousel  also  singing  but  a  thousand  feet 
below  him;  and  in  this  case  I  thought  the  ousel  sang 
better  than  his  unconscious  rival.  The  ousels  are  to  my 
mind  wellnigh  the  most  attractive  of  all  our  birds,  be- 
cause of  their  song,  their  extraordinary  habits,  their 
whole  personality.  They  stay  through  the  winter  in  the 
Yellowstone  because  the  waters  are  in  many  places  open. 
We  heard  them  singing  cheerfully,  their  ringing  melody 
having  a  certain  suggestion  of  the  winter  wren's.  Usually 
they  sang  while  perched  on  some  rock  on  the  edge  or 
in  the  middle  of  the  stream;  but  sometimes  on  the  wing; 
and  often  just  before  dipping  under  the  torrent,  or  just 
after  slipping  out  from  it  onto  some  ledge  of  rock  or 
ice.  In  the  open  places  the  Western  meadow  lark  was 
uttering  its  beautiful  song;  a  real  song  as  compared  to 
the  plaintive  notes  of  its  Eastern  brother,  and  though 
short,  yet  with  continuity  and  tune  as  well  as  melody.  I 
love  to  hear  the  Eastern  meadow  lark  in  the  early  spring; 
but  I  love  still  more  the  song  of  the  Western  meadow 
lark.  No  bird  escaped  John  Burroughs'  eye;  no  bird 
note  escaped  his  ear. 

I  cannot  understand  why  the  Old  World  ousel  should 
have  received  such  comparatively  scant  attention  in  the 
books,  whether  from  nature  writers  or  poets;  whereas 
our  ousel  has  greatly  impressed  all  who  know  him.  John 
Muir's  description  comes  nearest  doing  him  justice.  To 
me  he  seems  a  more  striking  bird  than  for  instance  the 
skylark;  though  of  course  I  not  only  admire  but  am  very 
fond  of  the  skylark.  There  are  various  pipits  and  larks 


3 io  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

in  our  own  country  which  sing  in  highest  air,  as  does 
the  skylark,  and  their  songs,  though  not  as  loud,  are 
almost  as  sustained;  and  though  they  lack  the  finer  kind 
of  melody,  so  does  his.  The  ousel,  on  the  contrary,  is  a 
really  brilliant  singer,  and  in  his  habits  he  is  even  farther 
removed  from  the  commonplace  and  the  uninteresting 
than  the  lark  himself.  Some  birds,  such  as  the  ousel, 
the  mocking-bird,  the  solitaire,  show  marked  originality, 
marked  distinction;  others  do  not;  the  chipping  sparrow, 
for  instance,  while  in  no  way  objectionable  (like  the  im- 
ported house  sparrow) ,  is  yet  a  hopelessly  commonplace 
little  bird  alike  in  looks,  habits  and  voice. 

On  the  last  day  of  my  stay  it  was  arranged  that  I 
should  ride  down  from  Mammoth  Hot  Springs  to  the 
town  of  Gardiner,  just  outside  the  Park  limits,  and  there 
make  an  address  at  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone  of  the 
arch  by  which  the  main  road  is  to  enter  the  Park.  Some 
three  thousand  people  had  gathered  to  attend  the  cere- 
monies. A  little  over  a  mile  from  Gardiner  we  came 
down  out  of  the  hills  to  the  flat  plain ;  from  the  hills  we 
could  see  the  crowd  gathered  around  the  arch  waiting 
for  me  to  come.  We  put  spurs  to  our  horses  and  cantered 
rapidly  toward  the  appointed  place,  and  on  the  way  we 
passed  within  forty  yards  of  a  score  of  blacktails,  which 
merely  moved  to  one  side  and  looked  at  us,  and  within 
almost  as  short  a  distance  of  half  a  dozen  antelope.  To 
any  lover  of  nature  it  could  not  help  being  a  delightful 
thing  to  see  the  wild  and  timid  creatures  of  the  wilderness 
rendered  so  tame;  and  their  tameness  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood  of  Gardiner,  on  the  very  edge  of  the  Park, 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES 


311 


spoke  volumes  for  the  patriotic  good  sense  of  the  citizens 
of  Montana.  At  times  the  antelope  actually  cross  the 
Park  line  to  Gardiner,  which  is  just  outside,  and  feed 
unmolested  in  the  very  streets  of  the  town;  a  fact  which 
shows  how  very  far  advanced  the  citizens  of  Gardiner 
are  in  right  feeling  on  this  subject;  for  of  course  the 
Federal  laws  cease  to  protect  the  antelope  as  soon  as  they 
are  out  of  the  Park.  Major  Pitcher  informed  me  that 
both  the  Montana  and  Wyoming  people  were  cooperat- 
ing with  him  in  zealous  fashion  to  preserve  the  game 
and  put  a  stop  to  poaching.  For  their  attitude  in  this 
regard  they  deserve  the  cordial  thanks  of  all  Americans 
interested  in  these  great  popular  playgrounds,  where 
bits  of  the  old  wilderness  scenery  and  the  old  wilderness 
life  are  to  be  kept  unspoiled  for  the  benefit  of  our  chil- 
dren's children.  Eastern  people,  and  especially  Eastern 
sportsmen,  need  to  keep  steadily  in  mind  the  fact  that  the 
westerners  who  live  in  the  neighborhood,  of  the  forest 
preserves  are  the  men  who  in  the  last  resort  will  deter- 
mine whether  or  not  these  preserves  are  to  be  permanent. 
They  cannot  in  the  long  run  be  kept  as  forest  and  game 
reservations  unless  the  settlers  roundabout  believe  in 
them  and  heartily  support  them;  and  the  rights  of  these 
settlers  must  be  carefully  safeguarded,  and  they  must  be 
shown  that  the  movement  is  really  in  their  interest.  The 
Eastern  sportsman  who  fails  to  recognize  these  facts  can 
do  little  but  harm  by  advocacy  of  forest  reserves. 

It  was  in  the  interior  of  the  Park,  at  the  hotels  beside 
the  lake,  the  falls,  and  the  various  geyser  basins,  that 
we  would  have  seen  the  bears  had  the  season  been  late 


312  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

enough;  but  unfortunately  the  bears  were  still  for  the 
most  part  hibernating.  We  saw  two  or  three  tracks,  but 
the  animals  themselves  had  not  yet  begun  to  come  about 
the  hotels.  Nor  were  the  hotels  open.  No  visitors  had 
previously  entered  the  Park  in  the  winter  or  early  spring, 
the  scouts  and  other  employees  being  the  only  ones  who 
occasionally  traverse  it.  I  was  sorry  not  to  see  the  bears, 
for  the  effect  of  protection  upon  bear  life  in  the  Yellow- 
stone has  been  one  of  the  phenomena  of  natural  history. 
Not  only  have  they  grown  to  realize  that  they  are  safe, 
but,  being  natural  scavengers  and  foul  feeders,  they  have 
come  to  recognize  the  garbage  heaps  of  the  hotels  as  their 
special  sources  of  food  supply.  Throughout  the  summer 
months  they  come  to  all  the  hotels  in  numbers,  usually 
appearing  in  the  late  afternoon  or  evening,  and  they  have 
become  as  indifferent  to  the  presence  of  men  as  the  deer 
themselves — some  of  them  very  much  more  indifferent. 
They  have  now  taken  their  place  among  the  recognized 
sights  of  the  Park,  and  the  tourists  are  nearly  as  much 
interested  in  them  as  in  the  geysers.  In  mussing  over 
the  garbage  heaps  they  sometimes  get  tin  cans  stuck  on 
their  paws,  and  the  result  is  painful.  Buffalo  Jones  and 
some  of  the  other  scouts  in  extreme  cases  rope  the  bear, 
tie  him  up,  cut  the  tin  can  off  his  paw,  and  let  him  go 
again.  It  is  not  an  easy  feat,  but  the  astonishing  thing 
is  that  it  should  be  performed  at  all. 

It  was  amusing  to  read  the  proclamations  addressed 
to  the  tourists  by  the  Park  management,  in  which  they 
were  solemnly  warned  that  the  bears  were  really  wild 
animals,  and  that  they  must  on  no  account  be  either  fed 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  313 

or  teased.  It  is  curious  to  think  that  the  descendants  of 
the  great  grizzlies  which  were  the  dread  of  the  early  ex- 
plorers and  hunters  should  now  be  semi-domesticated 
creatures,  boldly  hanging  around  crowded  hotels  for  the 
sake  of  what  they  can  pick  up,  and  quite  harmless  so  long 
as  any  reasonable  precaution  is  exercised.  They  are 
much  safer,  for  instance,  than  any  ordinary  bull  or  stall- 
ion, or  even  ram,  and,  in  fact,  there  is  no  danger  from 
them  at  all  unless  they  are  encouraged  to  grow  too  famil- 
iar or  are  in  some  way  molested.  Of  course  among  the 
thousands  of  tourists  there  is  a  percentage  of  fools;  and 
when  fools  go  out  in  the  afternoon  to  look  at  the  bears 
feeding  they  occasionally  bring  themselves  into  jeopardy 
by  some  senseless  act.  The  black  bears  and  the  cubs  of 
the  bigger  bears  can  readily  be  driven  up  trees,  and  some 
of  the  tourists  occasionally  do  this.  Most  of  the  animals 
never  think  of  resenting  it;  but  now  and  then  one  is  run 
across  which  has  its  feelings  ruffled  by  the  performance. 
In  the  summer  of  1902  the  result  proved  disastrous  to  a 
too  inquisitive  tourist.  He  was  travelling  with  his  wife, 
and  at  one  of  the  hotels  they  went  out  toward  the  garbage 
pile  to  see  the  bears  feeding.  The  only  bear  in  sight  was 
a  large  she,  which,  as  it  turned  out,  was  in  a  bad  temper 
because  another  party  of  tourists  a  few  minutes  before 
had  been  chasing  her  cubs  up  a  tree.  The  man  left  his 
wife  and  walked  toward  the  bear  to  see  how  close  he 
could  get.  When  he  was  some  distance  off  she  charged 
him,  whereupon  he  bolted  back  toward  his  wife.  The 
bear  overtook  him,  knocked  him  down  and  bit  him  se- 
verely. But  the  man's  wife,  without  hesitation,  attacked 


314  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  bear  with  that  thoroughly  feminine  weapon,  an  um- 
brella, and  frightened  her  off.  The  man  spent  several 
weeks  in  the  Park  hospital  before  he  recovered.  Per- 
haps the  following  telegram  sent  by  the  manager  of  the 
Lake  Hotel  to  Major  Pitcher  illustrates  with  sufficient 
clearness  the  mutual  relations  of  the  bears,  the  tourists, 
and  the  guardians  of  the  public  weal  in  the  Park.  The 
original  was  sent  me  by  Major  Pitcher.  It  runs : 

"Lake.  7-27-03.  Major  Pitcher,  Yellowstone:  As 
many  as  seventeen  bears  in  an  evening  appear  on  my 
garbage  dump.  To-night  eight  or  ten.  Campers  and 
people  not  of  my  hotel  throw  things  at  them  to  make  them 
run  away.  I  cannot,  unless  there  personally,  control  this. 
Do  you  think  you  could  detail  a  trooper  to  be  there 
every  evening  from  say  six  o'clock  until  dark  and  make 
people  remain  behind  danger  line  laid  out  by  Warden 
Jones?  Otherwise  I  fear  some  accident.  The  arrest 
of  one  or  two  of  these  campers  might  help.  My  own 
guests  do  pretty  well  as  they  are  told.  James  Barton 
Key.  9  A.  M." 

Major  Pitcher  issued  the  order  as  requested. 

At  times  the  bears  get  so  bold  that  they  take  to  mak- 
ing inroads  on  the  kitchen.  One  completely  terrorized  a 
Chinese  cook.  It  would  drive  him  off  and  then  feast 
upon  whatever  was  left  behind.  When  a  bear  begins  to 
act  in  this  way  or  to  show  surliness  it  is  sometimes  neces- 
sary to  shoot  it.  Other  bears  are  tamed  until  they  will 
feed  out  of  the  hand,  and  will  come  at  once  if  called.  Not 
only  have  some  of  the  soldiers  and  scouts  tamed  bears  in 
this  fashion,  but  occasionally  a  chambermaid  or  waiter 


GRIZZLY    BEAR   AND  COOK 


,    .      .    ,.•   ,',•'•',          ':      •• 

... 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES 


3*5 


girl  at  one  of  the  hotels  has  thus  developed  a  bear  as 
a  pet. 

The  accompanying  photographs  not  only  show  bears 
very  close  up,  with  men  standing  by  within  a  few  yards 
of  them,  but  they  also  show  one  bear  being  fed  from,  the 
piazza  by  a  cook,  and  another  standing  beside  a  particular 
friend,  a  chambermaid  in  one  of  the  hotels.  In  these 
photographs  it  will  be  seen  that  some  are  grizzlies  and 
some  black  bears. 

This  whole  episode  of  bear  life  in  the  Yellowstone  is 
so  extraordinary  that  it  will  be  well  worth  while  for  any 
man  who  has  the  right  powers  and  enough  time,  to  make 
a  complete  study  of  the  life  and  history  of  the  Yellow- 
stone bears.  Indeed,  nothing  better  could  be  done  by 
some  of  our  out-door  faunal  naturalists  than  to  spend  at 
least  a  year  in  the  Yellowstone,  and  to  study  the  life 
habits  of  all  the  wild  creatures  therein.  A  man  able  to 
do  this,  and  to  write  down  accurately  and  interestingly 
what  he  had  seen,  would  make  a  contribution  of  perma- 
nent value  to  our  nature  literature. 

In  May,  after  leaving  the  Yellowstone,  I  visited  the 
Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado,  and  then  went  through 
the  Yosemite  Park  with  John  Muir — the  companion 
above  all  others  for  such  a  trip.  It  is  hard  to  make  com- 
parisons among  different  kinds  of  scenery,  all  of  them 
very  grand  and  very  beautiful;  but  nothing  that  I  have 
ever  seen  has  impressed  me  quite  as  much  as  the  desolate 
and  awful  sublimity  of  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colo- 
rado. I  earnestly  wish  that  Congress  would  make  it  a 
national  park,  and  I  am  sure  that  such  course  would  meet 


316  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  approbation  of  the  people  of  Arizona.  The  people 
of  California  with  wise  and  generous  forethought  have 
given  the  Yosemite  Valley  to  the  National  Government 
to  be  kept  as  a  national  park,  just  as  the  surrounding 
country,  including  some  of  the  groves  of  giant  trees,  has 
been  kept.  The  flower-clad  slopes  of  the  Sierras — golden 
with  the  blazing  poppy,  brilliant  with  lilies  and  tulips 
and  red-stemmed  Manzinita  bush — are  unlike  anything 
else  in  this  country.  As  for  the  giant  trees,  no  words 
can  describe  their  majesty  and  beauty. 

John  Muir  and  I,  with  two  packers  and  three  pack 
mules,  spent  a  delightful  three  days  in  the  Yosemite. 
The  first  night  was  clear,  and  we  lay  in  the  open,  on  beds 
of  soft  fir  boughs,  among  the  huge,  cinnamon-colored 
trunks  of  the  sequoias.  It  was  like  lying  in  a  great  sol- 
emn cathedral,  far  vaster  and  more  beautiful  than  any 
built  by  hand  of  man.  Just  at  nightfall  I  heard,  among 
other  birds,  thrushes  which  I  think  were  Rocky  Moun- 
tain hermits — the  appropriate  choir  for  such  a  place  of 
worship.  Next  day  we  went  by  trail  through  the  woods, 
seeing  some  deer — which  were  not  wild — as  well  as 
mountain  quail  and  blue  grouse.  Among  the  birds  which 
we  saw  was  a  white-headed  woodpecker;  the  interesting 
carpenter  woodpeckers  were  less  numerous  than  lower 
down.  In  the  afternoon  we  struck  snow,  and  had  con- 
siderable difficulty  in  breaking  our  trails.  A  snow-storm 
came  on  toward  evening,  but  we  kept  warm  and  com- 
fortable in  a  grove  of  splendid  silver  firs — rightly  named 
"  magnificent " — near  the  brink  of  the  wonderful  Yosem- 
ite Valley.  Next  day  we  clambered  down  into  it  and 


THE   BEAR   AND    THE   CHAMBERMAID 


: :  * : :  • 

v   '  •  •  -   • 

- 

r         '   -   ',.     "^ 


WILDERNESS    RESERVES  317 

at  nightfall  camped  in  its  bottom,  facing  the  giant  cliffs 
over  which  the  waterfalls  thundered. 

Surely  our  people  do  not  understand  even  yet  the  rich 
heritage  that  is  theirs.  There  can  be  nothing  in  the 
world  more  beautiful  than  the  Yosemite,  the  groves  of 
giant  sequoias  and  redwoods,  the  Canyon  of  the  Colorado, 
the  Canyon  of  the  Yellowstone,  the  Three  Tetons;  and 
our  people  should  see  to  it  that  they  are  preserved  for 
their  children  and  their  children's  children  forever,  with 
their  majestic  beauty  all  unmarred. 


CHAPTER   X 

BOOKS    ON    BIG    GAME 

THE  nineteenth  century  was,  beyond  all  others,  the 
century  of  big  game  hunters,  and  of  books  about  big 
game.  From  the  days  of  Nimrod  to  our  own  there  have 
been  mighty  hunters  before  the  Lord,  and  most  warlike 
and  masterful  races  have  taken  kindly  to  the  chase,  as 
chief  among  those  rough  pastimes  which  appeal  naturally 
to  men  with  plenty  of  red  blood  in  their  veins.  But  until 
the  nineteenth  century  the  difficulties  of  travel  were  so 
great  that  men  of  our  race  with  a  taste  for  sport  could 
rarely  gratify  this  taste  except  in  their  own  neighborhood. 
The  earlier  among  the  great  conquering  kings  of  Egypt 
and  Assyria,  when  they  made  their  forays  into  Syria  and 
the  region  of  the  Upper  Euphrates,  hunted  the  elephant 
and  the  wild  bull,  as  well  as  the  lions  with  which  the 
country  swarmed;  and  Tiglath-Pileser  the  First,  as  over- 
lord of  Phoenicia,  embarked  on  the  Mediterranean,  and 
there  killed  a  "  sea-monster,"  presumably  a  whale — a  feat 
which  has  been  paralleled  by  no  sport-loving  sovereign 
of  modern  times,  save  by  that  stout  hunter,  the  German 
Kaiser;  though  I  believe  the  present  English  King,  like 
several  members  of  his  family,  has  slain  both  elephants 
and  tigers  before  he  came  to  the  throne.  But  the  ele- 

318 


BOOKS    ON    BIG    GAME  319 

phant  disappeared  from  Eastern  Asia  a  thousand  years 
before  our  era ;  and  the  lion  had  become  rare  or  unknown 
in  lands  where  the  dwellers  were  of  European  stock,  long 
before  the  days  of  written  records. 

There  was  good  hunting  in  Macedonia  in  the  days  of 
Alexander  the  Great;  there  was  good  hunting  in  the  Her- 
cynian  Forest  when  Frank  and  Bergund  were  turning 
Gaul  into  France;  there  was  good  hunting  in  Lithuania 
and  Poland  as  late  as  the  days  of  Sobieski ;  but  the  most 
famous  kings  and  nobles  of  Europe,  within  historic  times, 
though  they  might  kill  the  aurochs  and  the  bison,  the  bear 
and  the  boar,  had  no  chance  to  test  their  prowess  against 
the  mightier  and  more  terrible  beasts  of  the  tropics. 

No  modern  man  could  be  more  devoted  to  the  chase 
than  were  the  territorial  lords  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Two  of  the  most  famous  books  of  the  chase  ever  written 
were  the  Livre  de  Chasse  of  Count  Gaston  de  Foix — 
Gaston  Phoebus,  well  known  to  all  readers  of  Froissart 
— and  the  translation  or  adaptation  and  continuation 
of  the  same,  the  "  Master  of  Game,"  by  that  Duke  of 
York  who  "  died  victorious  "  at  Agincourt.  Mr.  Baillie- 
Grohman,  himself  a  hunter  and  mountaineer  of  wide 
experience,  a  trained  writer  and  observer,  and  a  close 
student  of  the  hunting  lore  of  the  past,  has  edited  and 
reproduced  the  "  Master  of  Game,"  in  form  which  makes 
it  a  delight  to  every  true  lover  of  books  no  less  than  to 
every  true  lover  of  sport.  A  very  interesting  little  book 
is  Glamorgan's  Chasse  du  Loup,  dedicated  to  Charles  the 
Ninth  of  France;  my  copy  is  of  the  edition  of  1566.  The 
text  and  the  illustrations  are  almost  equally  attractive. 


3 20  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

As  the  centuries  passed  it  became  more  and  more  diffi- 
cult to  obtain  sport  in  the  thickly  settled  parts  of  Europe 
save  in  the  vast  game  preserves  of  the  Kings  and  great 
lords.  These  magnates  of  Continental  Europe,  down  to 
the  beginning  of  the  last  century,  followed  the  chase 
with  all  the  ardor  of  Gaston  Phoebus;  indeed,  they  erred 
generally  on  the  side  of  fantastic  extravagance  and  exag- 
geration in  their  favorite  pursuit,  turning  it  into  a  solemn 
and  rather  ridiculous  business  instead  of  a  healthy  and 
vigorous  pastime;  but  they  could  hunt  only  the  beasts  of 
their  own  forests.  The  men  who  went  on  long  voyages 
usually  had  quite  enough  to  do  simply  as  travellers ;  the 
occupation  of  getting  into  unknown  lands,  and  of  keeping 
alive  when  once  in  them,  was  in  itself  sufficiently  absorb- 
ing and  hazardous  to  exclude  any  chance  of  combining 
with  it  the  role  of  sportsman. 

With  the  last  century  all  this  had  changed.  Even  in 
the  eighteenth  century  it  began  to  change.  The  Dutch 
settlers  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  the  English  set- 
tlers on  the  Atlantic  coast  of  North  America,  found  them- 
selves thrown  back  into  a  stage  of  life  where  hunting  was 
one  of  the  main  means  of  livelihood,  as  well  as  the  most 
exciting  and  adventurous  of  pastimes.  These  men  knew 
the  chase  as  men  of  their  race  had  not  known  it  since  the 
days  before  history  dawned;  and  until  the  closing  decades 
of  the  last  century  the  Americans  and  the  Afrikanders  of 
the  frontier  largely  led  the  lives  of  professional  hunters. 
Oom  Paul  and  Buffalo  Bill  led  very  different  careers 
after  they  reached  middle  age ;  but  in  their  youth  warfare 
against  wild  beasts  and  wild  men  was  the  most  serious 


BOOKS    ON    BIG    GAME 


321 


part  of  the  life-work  of  both.  They  and  their  fellows 
did  the  rough  pioneer  work  of  civilization,  under  condi- 
tions which  have  now  vanished  for  ever,  and  their  type 
will  perish  with  the  passing  of  the  forces  that  called  it 
into  being.  But  the  big  game  hunter,  whose  campaigns 
against  big  game  are  not  simply  incidents  in  his  career  as 
a  pioneer  settler,  will  remain  with  us  for  some  time 
longer;  and  it  is  of  him  and  his  writings  that  we  wish 
to  treat. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  this  big 
game  hunter  had  already  appeared,  although,  like  all 
early  types,  he  was  not  yet  thoroughly  specialized.  Le 
Vaillant  hunted  in  South  Africa,  and  his  volumes  are  ex- 
cellent reading  now.  A  still  better  book  is  that  of  Bruce, 
the  Abyssinian  explorer,  who  was  a  kind  of  Burton  of  his 
days,  with  a  marvellous  faculty  for  getting  into  quarrels, 
but  an  even  more  marvellous  faculty  for  doing  work 
which  no  other  man  could  do.  He  really  opened  a  new 
world  to  European  men  of  letters  and  science;  who  there- 
upon promptly  united  in  disbelieving  all  he  said,  though 
they  were  credulous  enough  toward  people  who  really 
should  have  been  distrusted.  But  his  tales  have  been 
proved  true  by  many  an  explorer  since  then,  and  his  book 
will  always  possess  interest  for  big  game  hunters,  because 
of  his  experiences  in  the  chase.  Sometimes  he  shot 
merely  in  self-defense  or  for  food,  but  he  also  made  regu- 
lar hunting  trips  in  company  with  the  wild  lords  of  the 
shifting  frontier  between  dusky  Christian  and  dusky  in- 
fidel. He  feasted  in  their  cane  palaces,  where  the  walls 
were  hung  with  the  trophies  of  giant  game,  and  in  their 


322  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

company,  with  horse  and  spear,  he  attacked  and  overcame 
the  buffalo  and  the  rhinoceros. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  hunt- 
ing book  proper  became  differentiated,  as  it  were,  from 
the  book  of  the  explorer.  One  of  the  earliest  was  Will- 
iamson's "  Oriental  Field  Sports."  This  is  to  the  present 
day  a  most  satisfactory  book,  especially  to  sporting  par- 
ents with  large  families  of  small  children.  The  pictures 
are  all  in  colors,  and  the  foliage  is  so  very  green,  and  the 
tigers  are  so  very  red,  and  the  boars  so  very  black,  and 
the  tragedies  so  uncommonly  vivid  and  startling,  that 
for  the  youthful  mind  the  book  really  has  no  formidable 
rival  outside  of  the  charmed  circle  where  Slovenly  Peter 
stands  first. 

Since  then  multitudes  of  books  have  been  written 
about  big  game  hunting.  Most  of  them  are  bad,  of 
course,  just  as  most  novels  and  most  poems  are  bad ;  but 
some  of  them  are  very  good  indeed,  while  a  few  are  enti- 
tled to  rank  high  in  literature — though  it  cannot  be  said 
that  as  yet  big  game  hunters  as  a  whole  have  produced 
such  writers  as  those  who  dwell  on  the  homelier  and  less 
grandiose  side  of  nature.  They  have  not  produced  a 
White  or  Burroughs,  for  instance.  What  could  not  Bur- 
roughs have  done  if  only  he  had  cared  for  adventure  and 
for  the  rifle,  and  had  roamed  across  the  Great  Plains  and 
the  Rockies,  and  through  the  dim  forests,  as  he  has  wan- 
dered along  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  and  the  Potomac! 
Thoreau,  it  is  true,  did  go  to  the  Maine  Woods;  but  then 
Thoreau  was  a  transcendentalist  and  slightly  anaemic. 
A  man  must  feel  the  beat  of  hardy  life  in  his  veins  before 


BOOKS    ON    BIG    GAME 


323 


he  can  be  a  good  big  game  hunter.  Fortunately,  Rich- 
ard Jeffries  has  written  an  altogether  charming  little  vol- 
ume on  the  Red  Deer,  so  that  there  is  at  least  one  game 
animal  which  has  been  fully  described  by  a  man  of  letters, 
who  was  also  both  a  naturalist  and  a  sportsman ;  but  it  is 
irritating  to  think  that  no  one  has  done  as  much  for  the 
lordlier  game  of  the  wilderness.  Not  only  should  the 
hunter  be  able  to  describe  vividly  the  chase,  and  the  life 
habits  of  the  quarry,  but  he  should  also  draw  the  wilder- 
ness itself,  and  the  life  of  those  who  dwell  or  sojourn 
therein.  We  wish  to  see  before  us  the  cautious  stalk  and 
the  headlong  gallop ;  the  great  beasts  as  they  feed  or  rest 
or  run  or  make  love  or  fight;  the  wild  hunting  camps; 
the  endless  plains  shimmering  in  the  sunlight;  the  vast, 
solemn  forests;  the  desert  and  the  marsh  and  the  moun- 
tain chain;  and  all  that  lies  hidden  in  the  lonely  lands 
through  which  the  wilderness  wanderer  roams  and  hunts 
game. 

But  there  remain  a  goodly  number  of  books  which  are 
not  merely  filled  with  truthful  information  of  impor- 
tance, but  which  are  also  absorbingly  interesting;  and  if 
a  book  is  both  truthful  and  interesting  it  is  surely  entitled 
to  a  place  somewhere  in  general  literature.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  first  requisite  bars  out  a  great  many  hunting 
books.  There  are  not  a  few  mighty  hunters  who  have 
left  long  records  of  their  achievements,  and  who  undoubt- 
edly did  achieve  a  great  deal,  but  who  contrive  to  leave 
in  the  mind  of  the  reader  the  uncomfortable  suspicion, 
that  besides  their  prowess  with  the  rifle  they  were  skilled 
in  the  use  of  that  more  archaic  weapon,  the  long  bow. 


324  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

"  The  Old  Shekarry,"  who  wrote  of  Indian  and  African 
sport,  was  one  of  these.  Gerard  was  a  great  lion-killer. 
but  some  of  his  accounts  of  the  lives,  deaths,  and  espe- 
cially the  courtships,  of  lions,  bear  much  less  relation  to 
actual  facts  than  do  the  novels  of  Dumas.  Not  a  few 
of  the  productions  of  hunters  of  this  type  should  be 
grouped  under  the  head-lines  used  by  the  newspapers  of 
our  native  land  in  describing  something  which  they  are 
perfectly  sure  hasn't  happened — "  Important,  if  True." 
The  exactly  opposite  type  is  presented  in  another  French- 
man, M.  Foa,  a  really  great  hunter  who  also  knows  how 
to  observe  and  to  put  down  what  he  has  observed.  His 
two  books  on  big  game  hunting  in  Africa  have  permanent 
value. 

If  we  were  limited  to  the  choice  of  one  big  game 
writer,  who  was  merely  such,  and  not  in  addition  a  scien- 
tific observer,  we  should  have  to  choose  Sir  Samuel  Baker, 
for  his  experiences  are  very  wide,  and  we  can  accept  with- 
out question  all  that  he  says  in  his  books.  He  hunted 
in  India,  in  Africa,  and  in  North  America ;  he  killed  all 
the  chief  kinds  of  heavy  and  dangerous  game;  and  he 
followed  them  on  foot  and  on  horseback,  with  the  rifle 
and  the  knife,  and  with  hounds.  For  the  same  reason,  if 
we  could  choose  but  one  work,  it  would  have  to  be  the 
volumes  of  "  Big  Game  Shooting,"  in  the  Badminton 
Library,  edited  by  Mr.  Phillipps  Wolley — himself  a  man 
who  has  written  well  of  big  game  hunting  in  out-of-the- 
way  places,  from  the  Caucasus  to  the  Cascades.  These 
volumes  contain  pieces  by  many  different  authors;  but 
they  differ  from  most  volumes  of  the  kind  in  that  all  the 


BOOKS    ON    BIG    GAME  325 

writers  are  trustworthy  and  interesting;  though  the  palm 
must  be  given  to  Oswell's  delightful  account  of  his  South 
African  hunting.  The  book  on  the  game  beasts  of  Africa 
edited  by  Mr.  Bryden  is  admirable  in  every  way. 

In  all  these  books  the  one  point  to  be  insisted  on  is  that 
a  big  game  hunter  has  nothing  in  common  with  so  many 
of  the  men  who  delight  to  call  themselves  sportsmen.  Sir 
Samuel  Baker  has  left  a  very  amusing  record  of  the 
horror  he  felt  for  the  Ceylon  sportsmen  who,  by  the  term 
"  sport,"  meant  horse-racing  instead  of  elephant  shooting. 
Half  a  century  ago,  Gordon-Gumming  wrote  of  "  the  life 
of  the  wild  hunter,  so  far  preferable  to  that  of  the  mere 
sportsman  " ;  and  his  justification  for  this  somewhat  sneer- 
ing reference  to  the  man  who  takes  his  sport  in  too  artifi- 
cial a  manner,  may  be  found  in  the  pages  of  a  then  noted 
authority  on  such  sports  as  horse-racing  and  fox-hunting; 
for  in  Apperly's  "  Nimrod  Abroad,"  in  the  course  of  an 
article  on  the  game  of  the  American  wilderness,  there 
occurs  this  delicious  sentence:  "A  damper,  however,  is 
thrown  over  all  systems  of  deer-stalking  in  Canada  by  the 
necessity,  which  is  said  to  be  unavoidable,  of  bivouacking 
in  the  woods  instead  of  in  well-aired  sheets!"  Verily, 
there  was  a  great  gulf  between  the  two  men. 

In  the  present  century  the  world  has  known  three 
great  hunting-grounds :  Africa,  from  the  equator  to  the 
southernmost  point;  India,  both  farther  and  hither;  and 
North  America  west  of  the  Mississippi,  from  the  Rio 
Grande  to  the  Arctic  Circle.  The  latter  never  ap- 
proached either  of  the  former  in  the  wealth  and  variety 
of  the  species,  or  in  the  size  and  terror  of  the  chief  beasts 


326  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

of  the  chase ;  but  it  surpassed  India  in  the  countless  num- 
bers of  the  individual  animals,  and  in  the  wild  and  un- 
known nature  of  the  hunting-grounds,  while  the  climate 
and  surroundings  made  the  conditions  under  which  the 
hunter  worked  pleasanter  and  healthier  than  those  in 
any  other  land. 

South  Africa  was  the  true  hunter's  paradise.  If  the 
happy  hunting-grounds  were  to  be  found  anywhere  in 
this  world,  they  lay  between  the  Orange  and  the  Zambesi, 
and  extended  northward  here  and  there  to  the  Nile  coun- 
tries and  Somaliland.  Nowhere  else  were  there  such 
multitudes  of  game,  representing  so  many  and  such  widely 
different  kinds  of  animals,  of  such  size,  such  beauty,  such 
infinite  variety.  We  should  have  to  go  back  to  the  fauna 
of  the  Pleistocene  to  find  its  equal.  Never  before  did 
men  enjoy  such  hunting  as  fell  to  the  lot  of  those  roving 
adventurers,  who  first  penetrated  its  hidden  fastnesses, 
camped  by  its  shrunken  rivers,  and  galloped  over  its  sun- 
scorched  wastes;  and,  alas  that  it  should  be  written,  no 
man  will  ever  see  the  like  again.  Fortunately,  its  mem- 
ory will  forever  be  kept  alive  in  some  of  the  books  that 
the  great  hunters  have  written  about  it,  such  as  Cornwallis 
Harris'  "  Wild  Sports  of  South  Africa,"  Gordon-Cum- 
ming's  "  Hunter's  Life  in  South  Africa,"  Baldwin's 
"  African  Hunting,"  Drummond's  "  Large  Game  and 
Natural  History  of  South  Africa,"  and,  best  of  all, 
Selous'  two  books,  "  A  Hunter's  Wanderings  in  South 
Africa "  and  "  Travel  and  Adventure  in  Southeast 
Africa."  Selous  was  the  last  of  the  great  hunters  of 
South  Africa,  and  no  other  has  left  books  of  such  value 


BOOKS   ON    BIG    GAME 


327 


as  his.  In  central  Africa  the  game  has  lasted  to  our  own 
time;  the  hunting  described  by  Alfred  Neumann  and 
Vaughn  Kirby  in  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury was  almost  as  good  as  any  enjoyed  by  their  brothers 
who  fifty  years  before  steered  their  ox-drawn  wagons 
across  the  "  high  veldt "  of  the  south  land. 

Moreover,  the  pencil  has  done  its  part  as  well  as  the 
pen.  Harris,  who  was  the  pioneer  of  all  the  hunters, 
published  an  admirable  illustrated  folio  entitled  "  The 
Game  and  Wild  Animals  of  South  Africa."  It  is  per- 
haps of  more  value  than  any  other  single  work  of  the  kind. 
J.  G.  Millais,  in  "  A  Breath  from  the  Veldt,"  has  rendered 
a  unique  service,  not  only  by  his  charming  descriptions, 
but  by  his  really  extraordinary  sketches  of  the  South 
African  antelopes,  both  at  rest,  and  in  every  imaginable 
form  of  motion.  Nearly  at  the  other  end  of  the  continent 
there  is  an  admirable  book  on  lion-hunting  in  Somali- 
land,  by  Captain  C.  J.  Melliss.  Much  information  about 
big  game  can  be  taken  from  the  books  of  various  mission- 
aries and  explorers;  Livingstone  and  Du  Chaillu  doing 
for  Africa  in  this  respect  what  Catlin  did  for  North 
America. 

As  we  have  said  before,  one  great  merit  of  these  books 
is  that  they  are  interesting.  Quite  a  number  of  men  who 
are  good  sportsmen,  as  well  as  men  of  means,  have  written 
books  about  their  experiences  in  Africa;  but  the  trouble 
with  too  many  of  these  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  rich 
is,  that  they  are  very  dull.  They  are  not  literature,  any 
more  than  treatises  on  farriery  and  cooking  are  literature. 
To  read  a  mere  itinerary  is  like  reading  a  guide-book. 


328  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

No  great  enthusiasm  in  the  reader  can  be  roused  by  such 
a  statement  as  "  this  day  walked  twenty-three  miles,  shot 
one  giraffe  and  two  zebras;  porter  deserted  with  the  load 
containing  the  spare  boots";  and  the  most  exciting 
events,  if  chronicled  simply  as  "  shot  three  rhinos  and  two 
buffalo;  the  first  rhino  and  both  buffalo  charged,"  become 
about  as  thrilling  as  a  paragraph  in  Baedeker.  There 
is  no  need  of  additional  literature  of  the  guide-book  and 
cookery-book  kind.  "  Fine  writing  "  is,  of  course,  ab- 
horrent in  a  way  that  is  not  possible  for  mere  baldness  of 
statement,  and  would-be  "  funny  "  writing  is  even  worse, 
as  it  almost  invariably  denotes  an  underbred  quality  of 
mind;  but  there  is  need  of  a  certain  amount  of  detail,  and 
of  vivid  and  graphic,  though  simple,  description.  In 
other  words,  the  writer  on  big  game  should  avoid  equally 
Carlyle's  theory  and  Carlyle's  practice  in  the  matter  of 
verbosity.  Really  good  game  books  are  sure  to  contain 
descriptions  which  linger  in  the  mind  just  like  one's  pet 
passages  in  any  other  good  book.  One  example  is  Selous' 
account  of  his  night  watch  close  to  the  wagon,  when  in 
the  pitchy  darkness  he  killed  three  of  the  five  lions  which 
had  attacked  his  oxen;  or  his  extraordinary  experience 
while  hunting  elephants  on  a  stallion  which  turned  sulky, 
and  declined  to  gallop  out  of  danger.  The  same  is  true 
of  Drummond's  descriptions  of  the  camps  of  native  hunt- 
ing parties,  of  tracking  wounded  buffalo  through  the 
reeds,  and  of  waiting  for  rhinos  by  a  desert  pool  under  the 
brilliancy  of  the  South  African  moon;  descriptions,  by 
the  way,  which  show  that  the  power  of  writing  interest- 
ingly is  not  dependent  upon  even  approximate  correctness 


BOOKS    ON    BIG    GAME 


329 


in  style,  for  some  of  Mr.  DrummoncTs  sentences,  in  point 
of  length  and  involution,  would  compare  not  unfavorably 
with  those  of  a  Populist  Senator  discussing  bimetallism. 
Drummond  is  not  as  trustworthy  an  observer  as  Selous. 

The  experiences  of  a  hunter  in  Africa,  with  its  teem- 
ing wealth  of  strange  and  uncouth  beasts,  must  have  been, 
and  in  places  must  still  be,  about  what  one's  experience 
would  be  if  one  could  suddenly  go  back  a  few  hundred 
thousand  years  for  a  hunting  trip  in  the  Pliocene  or  Pleis- 
tocene. In  Mr.  Astor  Chanler's  book,  "  Through  Jungle 
and  Desert,"  the  record  of  his  trip  through  the  melan- 
choly reed  beds  of  the  Guaso  Nyiro,  and  of  his  re- 
turn journey,  carrying  his  wounded  companion,  through 
regions  where  the  caravan  was  perpetually  charged  by 
rhinoceros,  reads  like  a  bit  out  of  the  unreckoned  ages  of 
the  past,  before  the  huge  and  fierce  monsters  of  old  had 
vanished  from  the  earth,  or  acknowledged  man  as  their 
master.  An  excellent  book  of  mixed  hunting  and  scien- 
tific exploration  is  Mr.  Donaldson  Smith's  "  Through 
Unknown  African  Countries."  If  anything,  the  hunting 
part  is  unduly  sacrificed  to  some  of  the  minor  scientific 
work.  Full  knowledge  of  a  new  breed  of  rhinoceros,  or 
a  full  description  of  the  life  history  and  chase  of  almost 
any  kind  of  big  game,  is  worth  more  than  any  quantity 
of  matter  about  new  spiders  and  scorpions.  Small  birds 
and  insects  remain  in  the  land,  and  can  always  be  de- 
scribed by  the  shoal  of  scientific  investigators  who  follow 
the  first  adventurous  explorers ;  but  it  is  only  the  pioneer 
hunter  who  can  tell  us  all  about  the  far  more  interesting 
and  important  beasts  of  the  chase,  the  different  kinds  of 


33° 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


big  game,  and  especially  dangerous  big  game ;  and  it  is 
a  mistake  in  any  way  to  subordinate  the  greater  work  to 
the  lesser. 

Books  on  big  game  hunting  in  India  are  as  plentiful, 
and  as  good,  as  those  about  Africa.  Forsyth's  "  High- 
lands of  Central  India,"  Sanderson's  "  Thirteen  Years 
Among  the  Wild  Beasts  of  India,"  Shakespeare's  "  Wild 
Sports  of  India,"  and  Kinloch's  "  Large  Game  Shoot- 
ing," are  perhaps  the  best;  but  there  are  many  other 
writers,  like  Markham,  Baldwin,  Rice,  Macintyre,  and 
Stone,  who  are  also  very  good.  Indeed,  to  give  even 
a  mere  list  of  the  titles  of  the  good  books  on  Indian 
shooting  would  read  too  much  like  the  Homeric  cata- 
logue of  ships,  or  the  biblical  generations  of  the  Jew- 
ish patriarchs.  The  four  books  singled  out  for  special 
reference  are  interesting  reading  for  anyone;  particularly 
the  accounts  of  the  deaths  of  man-eating  tigers  at  the 
hands  of  Forsyth,  Shakespeare,  and  Sanderson,  and  some 
of  Kinloch's  Himalayan  stalks.  It  is  indeed  royal  sport 
which  the  hunter  has  among  the  stupendous  mountain 
masses  of  the  Himalayas,  and  in  the  rank  jungles  and 
steamy  tropical  forests  of  India. 

Hunting  should  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  love  of 
natural  history,  as  well  as  with  descriptive  and  narrative 
power.  Hornaday's  "  Two  Years  in  the  Jungle  "  is  espe- 
cially interesting  to  the  naturalist;  but  he  adds  not  a  little 
to  our  knowledge  of  big  game.  It  is  earnestly  to  be 
wished  that  some  hunter  will  do  for  the  gorilla  what 
Hornaday  has  done  for  the  great  East  Indian  ape,  the 
mias  or  orang. 


BOOKS    ON    BIG    GAME 


331 


There  are  many  good  books  on  American  big  game, 
but,  rather  curiously,  they  are  for  the  most  part  modern. 
Until  within  the  present  generation  Americans  only 
hunted  big  game  if  they  were  frontier  settlers,  profes- 
sional trappers,  Southern  planters,  army  officers,  or  ex- 
plorers. The  people  of  the  cities  of  the  old  States  were 
bred  in  the  pleasing  faith  that  anything  unconcerned  with 
business  was  both  a  waste  of  time  and  presumably  im- 
moral. Those  who  travelled  went  to  Europe  instead  of 
to  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

Throughout  the  pioneer  stages  of  American  history, 
big  game  hunting  was  not  merely  a  pleasure,  but  a  busi- 
ness, and  often  a  very  important  and  in  fact  vital  business. 
At  different  times  many  of  the  men  who  rose  to  great 
distinction  in  our  after  history  took  part  in  it  as  such: 
men  like  Andrew  Jackson  and  Sam  Houston,  for  instance. 
Moreover,  aside  from  these  pioneers  who  afterward  won 
distinction  purely  as  statesmen  or  soldiers,  there  were 
other  members  of  the  class  of  professional  hunters — men 
who  never  became  eminent  in  the  .complex  life  of  the 
old  civilized  regions,  who  always  remained  hunters,  and 
gloried  in  the  title — who,  nevertheless,  through  and  be- 
cause of  their  life  in  the  wilderness,  rose  to  national  fame 
and  left  their  mark  on  our  history.  The  three  most 
famous  men  of  this  class  were  Daniel  Boone,  David 
Crockett,  and  Kit  Carson,  who  were  renowned  in  every 
quarter  of  the  Union  for  their  skill  as  game-killers,  Ind- 
ian-fighters, and  wilderness  explorers,  and  whose  deeds 
are  still  stock  themes  in  the  floating  legendary  lore  of  the 
border.  They  stand  for  all  time  as  types  of  the  pioneer 


332  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

settlers  who  won  our  land;  the  bridge-builders,  the  road- 
makers,  the  forest-fellers,  the  explorers,  the  land-tillers, 
the  mighty  men  of  their  hands,  who  laid  the  foundations 
of  this  great  commonwealth. 

There  are  good  descriptions  of  big  game  hunting  in 
the  books  of  writers  like  Catlin,  but  they  come  in  inci- 
dentally. Elliott's  "  South  Carolina  Field  Sports "  is  a 
very  interesting  and  entirely  trustworthy  record  of  the 
sporting  side  of  existence  on  the  old  Southern  plantations, 
and  not  only  commemorates  how  the  planters  hunted 
bear,  deer,  fox,  and  wildcat  on  the  uplands  and  in  the 
cane-brakes,  but  also  gives  a  unique  description  of  har- 
pooning the  great  devil-fish  in  the  warm  Southern  waters. 
John  Palliser,  an  Englishman,  in  his  "  Solitary  Hunter," 
has  given  us  the  best  descriptions  of  hunting  in  the  far 
West,  when  it  was  still  an  untrodden  wilderness.  An- 
other Englishman,  Ruxton,  in  two  volumes,  has  left  us  a 
most  vivid  picture  of  the  old  hunters  and  trappers  them- 
selves. Unfortunately,  these  old  hunters  and  trappers, 
the  men  who  had  most  experience  in  the  life  of  the  wil- 
derness, were  utterly  unable  to  write  about  it;  they  could 
not  tell  what  they  had  seen  or  done.  Occasional  attempts 
have  been  made  to  get  noted  hunters  to  write  books,  either 
personally  or  by  proxy,  but  these  attempts  have  not  as 
a  rule  been  successful.  Perhaps  the  best  of  the  books 
thus  produced  is  Hittell's  "  Adventures  of  James  Capen 
Adams,  Mountaineer  and  Grizzly  Bear  Hunter." 

The  first  effort  to  get  men  of  means  and  cultivation 
in  the  Northern  and  Eastern  States  of  the  Union  to  look 
at  field  sports  in  the  right  light  was  made  by  an  English- 


BOOKS    ON    BIG   GAME 


333 


man  who  wrote  over  the  signature  of  Frank  Forrester. 
He  did  much  for  the  shotgun  men;  but,  unfortunately, 
he  was  a  true  cockney,  who  cared  little  for  really  wild 
sports,  and  he  was  afflicted  with  that  dreadful  pedantry 
which  pays  more  heed  to  ceremonial  and  terminology 
than  to  the  thing  itself.  He  was  sincerely  distressed  be- 
cause the  male  of  the  ordinary  American  deer  was  called 
a  buck  instead  of  a  stag;  and  it  seemed  to  him  to  be  a 
matter  of  moment  whether  one  spoke  of  a  "  gang  "  or  a 
"  herd  "  of  elk. 

There  are  plenty  of  excellent  books  nowadays,  how- 
ever. The  best  book  upon  the  old  plains  country  was 
Colonel  Richard  Irving  Dodge's  "  Hunting-Grounds  of 
the  Great  West,"  which  dealt  with  the  chase  of  most 
kinds  of  plains  game  proper.  Judge  Caton,  in  his  "  Ante- 
lope and  Deer  of  America,"  gave  a  full  account  of  not 
only  the  habits  and  appearance,  but  the  methods  of  chase 
and  life  histories  of  the  prongbuck,  and  of  all  the  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  deer  found  in  the  United  States.  Dr. 
Allen,  in  his  memoir  on  the  bisons  of  America,  and 
Hornaday,  in  his  book  upon  their  extermination,  have 
rendered  similar  service  for  the  vast  herds  of  shaggy- 
maned  wild  cattle  which  have  vanished  with  such  mel- 
ancholy rapidity  during  the  lifetime  of  the  present 
generation.  Mr.  Van  Dyke's  "  Still-Hunter  "  is  a  note- 
worthy book,  which,  for  the  first  time,  approaches  the 
still-hunter  and  his  favorite  game,  the  deer,  from  what 
may  be  called  the  standpoint  of  the  scientific  sportsman. 
It  is  one  of  the  few  hunting-books  which  should  really 
be  studied  by  the  beginner  because  of  what  he  can  learn 


334  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

therefrom  in  reference  to  the  hunter's  craft.  The  Cen- 
tury Co.'s  volume  "  Sport  With  Gun  and  Rod  "  contains 
accounts  of  the  chase  of  most  of  the  kinds  of  American 
big  game,  although  there  are  two  or  three  notable  omis- 
sions, such  as  the  elk,  the  grizzly  bear,  and  the  white 
goat.  Warburton  Pike,  Caspar  Whitney,  and  Frederick 
Schwatka  have  given  fairly  full  and  very  interesting  ac- 
counts of  boreal  sport;  and  Pendarves  Vivian  and  Baillie- 
Grohman  of  hunting  trips  in  the  Rockies.  A  new  and 
most  important  departure,  that  of  photographing  wild 
animals  in  their  homes,  was  marked  by  Mr.  Wallihan's 
"  Camera  Shots  at  Big  Game."  This  is  a  noteworthy 
volume.  Mr.  Wallihan  was  the  pioneer  in  a  work  which 
is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  naturalist,  the  man 
of  science;  and  what  he  accomplished  was  far  more 
creditable  to  himself,  and  of  far  more  importance  to 
others,  than  any  amount  of  game-killing.  Finally,  in 
Parkman's  "  Oregon  Trail "  and  Irving's  "  Trip  on  the 
Prairie,"  two  great  writers  have  left  us  a  lasting  record 
of  the  free  life  of  the  rifle-bearing  wanderers  who  first 
hunted  in  the  wild  Western  lands. 

Though  not  hunting-books,  John  Burroughs'  writ- 
ings and  John  Muir's  volumes  on  the  Sierras  should  be 
in  the  hands  of  every  lover  of  outdoor  life,  and  there- 
fore in  the  hands -of  every  hunter  who  is  a  nature  lover, 
and  not  a  mere  game-butcher. 

Of  course,  there  are  plenty  of  books  on  European 
game.  Scrope's  "Art  of  Deerstalking,"  Bromley  Daven- 
port's "  Sport,"  and  all  the  books  of  Charles  St.  John, 
are  classic.  The  chase  of  the  wolf  and  boar  is  excellently 


BOOKS    ON    BIG    GAME 


335 


described  by  an  unnamed  writer  in  "  Wolf-Hunting  and 
Wild  Sports  of  Brittany."  Baillie-Grohman's  "  Sport  in 
the  Alps  "  is  devoted  to  the  mountain  game  of  Central 
Europe,  and  is,  moreover,  a  mine  of  curious  hunting  lore, 
most  of  which  is  entirely  new  to  men  unacquainted  with 
the  history  of  the  chase  in  Continental  Europe  during 
the  last  few  centuries.  An  entirely  novel  type  of  ad- 
venture was  set  forth  in  Lament's  "  Seasons  with  the  Sea 
Horses,"  wherein  he  described  his  hunting  in  arctic  waters 
with  rifle  and  harpoon.  Lloyd's  "  Scandinavian  Ad- 
ventures "  and  "  Northern  Field  Sports,"  and  Whishaw's 
"  Out  of  Doors  in  Tsar  Land,"  tell  of  the  life  and  game 
of  the  snowy  northern  forests.  Chapman  has  done  ex- 
cellent work  for  both  Norway  and  Spain.  It  would 
be  impossible  even  to  allude  to  the  German  and  French 
books  on  the  chase,  such  as  the  admirable  but  rather 
technical  treatises  of  Le  Couteulx  de  Canteleu.  More- 
over, these  books  for  the  most  part  belong  rather  in  the 
category  which  includes  English  fox-hunting  literature, 
not  in  that  which  deals  with  big  game  and  the  life  of 
the  wilderness.  This  is  merely  to  state  a  difference — not 
to  draw  a  comparison ;  for  the  artificial  sports  of  highly 
civilized  countries  are  strongly  to  be  commended  for 
their  effect  on  national  character  in  making  good  the 
loss  of  certain  of  the  rougher  virtues  which  tend  to  dis- 
appear with  the  rougher  conditions. 

In  Mr.  Edward  North  Buxton's  two  volumes  of 
"  Short  Stalks "  we  find  the  books  of  a  man  who  is  a 
hardy  lover  of  nature,  a  skilled  hunter,  but  not  a  game- 
butcher;  a  man  who  has  too  much  serious  work  on  hand 


336  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ever  to  let  himself  become  a  mere  globe-trotting  rifleman. 
His  volumes  teach  us  just  what  a  big  game  hunter,  a  true 
sportsman,  should  be.  But  the  best  recent  book  on  the 
wilderness  is  Herr  C.  G.  Schilling's  "  Mit  Blitzlicht  und 
Buchse,"  giving  the  writer's  hunting  adventures,  and 
above  all  his  acute  scientific  observations  and  his  extra- 
ordinary photographic  work  among  the  teeming  wild 
creatures  of  German  East  Africa.  Mr.  Schilling  is  a 
great  field  naturalist,  a  trained  scientific  observer,  as  well 
as  a  mighty  hunter;  and  no  mere  hunter  can  ever  do  work 
even  remotely  approaching  in  value  that  which  he  has 
done.  His  book  should  be  translated  into  English  at  once. 
Every  effort  should  be  made  to  turn  the  modern  big 
game  hunter  into  the  Schilling  type  of  adventure-loving 
field  naturalist  and  observer. 

I  am  not  disposed  to  undervalue  manly  outdoor  sports, 
or  to  fail  to  appreciate  the  advantage  to  a  nation,  as  well 
as  to  an  individual,  of  such  pastimes;  but  they  must  be 
pastimes,  and  not  business,  and  they  must  not  be  carried 
to  excess.  There  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  life  of  a 
professional  hunter  in  lonely  lands;  but  the  man  able 
to  be  something  more,  should  be  that  something  more 
— an  explorer,  a  naturalist,  or  else  a  man  who  makes 
his  hunting  trips  merely  delightful  interludes  in  his  life 
work.  As  for  excessive  game  butchery,  it  amounts  to  a 
repulsive  debauch.  The  man  whose  chief  title  to  glory 
is  that,  during  an  industrious  career  of  destruction,  he 
has  slaughtered  200,000  head  of  deer  and  partridges, 
stands  unpleasantly  near  those  continental  kings  and 
nobles  who,  during  the  centuries  before  the  French  Rev- 


BOOKS   ON   BIG   GAME  337 

* 

olution,  deified  the  chase  of  the  stag,  and  made  it  into 
a  highly  artificial  cult,  which  they  followed  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  State-craft  and  war-craft  and  everything  else. 
James,  the  founder  of  the  ignoble  English  branch  of  the 
Stuart  kings,  as  unkingly  a  man  as  ever  sat  on  a  throne, 
was  fanatical  in  his  devotion  to  the  artificial  kind  of  chase 
which  then  absorbed  the  souls  of  the  magnates  of  con- 
tinental Europe. 

There  is  no  need  to  exercise  much  patience  with  men 
who  protest  against  field  sports,  unless,  indeed,  they  are 
logical  vegetarians  of  the  flabbiest  Hindoo  type.  If  no 
deer  or  rabbits  were  killed,  no  crops  could  be  cultivated. 
If  it  is  morally  right  to  kill  an  animal  to  eat  its  body, 
then  it  is  morally  right  to  kill  it  to  preserve  its  head.  A 
good  sportsman  will  not  hesitate  as  to  the  relative  value 
he  puts  upon  the  two,  and  to  get  the  one  he  will  go  a  long 
time  without  eating  the  other.  No  nation  facing  the  un- 
healthy softening  and  relaxation  of  fibre  which  tend  to 
accompany  civilization  can  afford  to  neglect  anything 
that  will  develop  hardihood,  resolution,  and  the  scorn  of 
discomfort  and  danger.  But  if  sport  is  made  an  end  in- 
stead of  a  means,  it  is  better  to  avoid  it  altogether.  The 
greatest  stag-hunter  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  the 
Elector  of  Saxony.  During  the  Thirty  Years'  War  he 
killed  some  80,000  deer  and  boar.  Now,  if  there  ever 
was  a  time  when  a  ruler  needed  to  apply  himself  to 
serious  matters,  it  was  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War  in 
Germany,  and  if  the  Elector  in  question  had  eschewed 
hunting  he  might  have  compared  more  favorably  with 
Gustavus  Adolphus  in  his  own  generation,  or  the  Great 


338  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

Elector  of  Brandenburg  in  the  next  generation.  The 
kings  of  the  House  of  Savoy  have  shown  that  the  love 
of  hardy  field  sports  in  no  way  interferes  with  the  exer- 
cise of  the  highest  kind  of  governmental  ability. 

Wellington  was  fond  of  fox-hunting,  but  he  did  very 
little  of  it  during  the  period  of  the  Peninsular  War. 
Grant  cared  much  for  fine  horses,  but  he  devoted  his  at- 
tention to  other  matters  when  facing  Lee  before  Rich- 
mond. Perhaps  as  good  an  illustration  as  could  be  wished 
of  the  effects  of  the  opposite  course  is  furnished  by  poor 
Louis  XVI.  He  took  his  sport  more  seriously  than  he 
did  his  position  as  ruler  of  his  people.  On  the  day  when 
the  revolutionary  mob  came  to  Versailles,  he  merely  re- 
corded in  his  diary  that  he  had  "  gone  out  shooting,  and 
had  killed  eighty-one  head  when  he  was  interrupted  by 
events."  The  particular  event  to  which  this  "  interrup- 
tion "  led  up  was  the  guillotine.  Not  many  sportsmen 
have  to  face  such  a  possibility;  but  they  do  run  the  risk 
of  becoming  a  curse  to  themselves  and  to  everyone  else, 
if  they  once  get  into  the  frame  of  mind  which  can  look 
on  the  business  of  life  as  merely  an  interruption  to  sport 


CHAPTER   XI 

AT  HOME 

ONLY  a  few  men,  comparatively  speaking,  lead  their 
lives  in  the  wilderness;  only  a  few  others,  again  speak- 
ing comparatively,  are  able  to  take  their  holidays  in  the 
shape  of  hunting  trips  in  the  wilderness.  But  all  who 
live  in  the  country,  or  who  even  spend  a  month  now 
and  then  in  the  country,  can  enjoy  outdoor  life  them- 
selves, and  can  see  that  their  children  enjoy  it  in  the  hardy 
fashion  which  will  do  them  good.  Camping  out,  and 
therefore  the  cultivation  of  the  capacity  to  live  in  the 
open,  and  the  education  of  the  faculties  which  teach  ob- 
servation, resourcefulness,  self-reliance,  are  within  the 
reach  of  all  who  really  care  for  the  life  of  the  woods, 
the  fields,  and  the  waters.  Marksmanship  with  the  rifle 
can  be  cultivated  with  small  cost  or  trouble;  and  if  any 
one  passes  much  time  in  the  country  he  can,  if  only  he 
chooses,  learn  much  about  horsemanship. 

But  aside  from  any  such  benefit,  it  is  an  incalculable 
added  pleasure  to  any  one's  sum  of  happiness  if  he  or 
she  grows  to  know,  even  slightly  and  imperfectly,  how  to 
read  and  enjoy  the  wonder-book  of  nature.  All  hunters 
should  be  nature  lovers.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  days 
of  mere  wasteful,  boastful  slaughter,  are  past,  and  that 
from  now  on  the  hunter  will  stand  foremost  in  working 


340  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

for  the  preservation  and  perpetuation  of  the  wild  life, 
whether  big  or  little. 

The  Audubon  Society  and  kindred  organizations 
have  done  much  for  the  proper  protection  of  birds  and 
of  wild  creatures  generally;  they  have  taken  the  lead  in 
putting  a  stop  to  wanton  or  short-sighted  destruction,  and 
in  giving  effective  utterance  to  the  desires  of  those  who 
wish  to  cultivate  a  spirit  as  far  removed  as  possible  from 
that  which  brings  about  such  destruction.  Sometimes, 
however,  in  endeavoring  to  impress  upon  a  not  easily 
aroused  public  the  need  for  action,  they  in  their  zeal  over- 
state this  need.  This  is  a  very  venial  error  compared  to 
the  good  they  have  done ;  but  in  the  interest  of  scientific 
accuracy  it  is  to  be  desired  that  their  cause  should  not 
be  buttressed  in  such  manner.  Many  of  our  birds  have 
diminished  lamentably  in  numbers,  and  there  is  every 
reason  for  taking  steps  to  preserve  them.  There  are  wa- 
ter birds,  shore  birds,  game  birds,  and  an  occasional  con- 
spicuous bird  of  some  other  kind,  which  can  only  be 
preserved  by  such  agitation.  It  is  also  most  desirable 
to  prevent  the  slaughter  of  small  birds  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  towns.  But  I  question  very  much  whether  there 
has  been  any  diminution  of  small-bird  life  throughout 
the  country  at  large.  Certainly  no  such  diminution  has 
taken  place  during  the  past  thirty  years  in  any  region  of 
considerable  size  with  which  I  am  personally  acquainted. 
Take  Long  Island,  for  instance.  During  this  period 
there  has  been  a  lamentable  decrease  in  the  waders — the 
shore-birds — which  used  to  flock  along  its  southern  shore. 
But  in  northern  Long  Island,  in  the  neighborhood  of  my 


RENOWN 
From  a  photograph  by  Arthur  Hewitt 


AT   HOME  341 

own  home,  birds,  taken  as  a  whole,  are  quite  as  plentiful 
as  they  were  when  I  was  a  boy.  There  are  one  or  two 
species  which  have  decreased  in  numbers,  notably  the 
woodcock;  while  the  passenger  pigeon,  which  was  then 
a  rarely  seen  straggler,  does  not  now  appear  at  all.  Bob- 
whites  are  less  plentiful.  On  the  other  hand,  some  birds 
have  certainly  increased  in  numbers.  This  is  true,  for 
instance,  of  the  conspicuously  beautiful  and  showy  scar- 
let tanager.  I  think  meadow  larks  are  rather  more 
plentiful  than  they  were,  and  wrens  less  so.  Bluebirds 
have  never  been  common  with  us,  but  are  now  rather 
more  common  than  formerly.  It  seems  to  me  as  if  the 
chickadees  were  more  numerous  than  formerly.  Purple 
grakles  are  more  plentiful  than  when  I  was  a  boy,  and 
the  far  more  attractive  redwing  blackbirds  less  so.  But 
these  may  all  be,  and  doubtless  some  must  be,  purely 
local  changes,  which  apply  only  to  our  immediate  neigh- 
borhood. As  regards  most  of  the  birds,  it  would  be  hard 
to  say  that  there  has  been  any  change.  Of  course,  obvi- 
ous local  causes  will  now  and  then  account  for  a  partial 
change.  Thus,  while  the  little  green  herons  are  quite 
as  plentiful  as  formerly  in  our  immediate  neighborhood, 
the  white-crowned  night  herons  are  not  as  plentiful,  be- 
cause they  abandoned  their  big  heronry  on  Lloyd's  Neck 
upon  the  erection  of  a  sandmill  close  by.  The  only  ducks 
which  are  now,  or  at  any  time  during  the  last  thirty  years 
have  been,  abundant  in  our  neighborhood  are  the  surf- 
ducks  or  scoters,  and  the  old-squaws,  sometimes  known 
as  long-tailed  or  sou'-sou'-southerly  ducks.  From  late 
fall  until  early  spring  the  continuous  musical  clangor  of 


342  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  great  flocks  of  sou'-sou'-southerlies,  sounding  across 
the  steel-gray,  wintry  waves,  is  well  known  to  all  who 
sail  the  waters  of  the  Sound. 

Neither  the  birds  nor  the  flowers  are  as  numerous  on 
Long  Island,  or  at  any  rate  in  my  neighborhood,  as  they 
are,  for  instance,  along  the  Hudson  and  near  Washing- 
ton. It  is  hard  to  say  exactly  why  flowers  and  birds  are 
at  times  so  local  in  their  distribution.  For  instance,  the 
bobolinks  hardly  ever  come  around  us  at  Sagamore  Hill. 
Within  a  radius  of  three  or  four  miles  of  the  house  I  do 
not  remember  to  have  ever  seen  more  than  two  or  three 
couples  breeding.  Sharp-tailed  finches  are  common  in 
the  marsh  which  lies  back  of  our  beach;  but  the  closely 
allied  seaside  finches  and  the  interesting  and  attractive 
little  marsh  wrens,  both  of  which  are  common  in  vari- 
ous parts  of  Long  Island,  are  not  found  near  our  home. 
Similarly,  I  know  of  but  one  place  near  our  house  where 
the  bloodroot  grows;  the  may-flowers  are  plentiful,  but 
among  hillsides  to  all  appearance  equally  favored,  are 
found  on  some,  and  not  on  others.  For  wealth  of  bloom, 
aside  from  the  orchards,  we  must  rely  chiefly  upon  the 
great  masses  of  laurel  and  the  many  groves  of  locusts. 
The  bloom  of  the  locust  is  as  evanescent  as  it  is  fragrant. 
During  the  short  time  that  the  trees  are  in  flower  the 
whole  air  is  heavy  with  the  sweet  scent.  In  the  fall,  in 
the  days  of  the  aster  and  the  golden-rod,  there  is  no 
such  brilliant  coloring  on  Long  Island  as  farther  north, 
for  we  miss  from  among  the  forest  hues  the  flaming 
crimsons  and  scarlets  of  the  northern  maples. 

Among  Long  Island  singers  the  wood-thrushes  are 


HIS   FIRST   BUCK 


AT    HOME  343 

the  sweetest;  they  nest  right  around  our  house,  and  also 
in  the  more  open  woods  of  oak,  hickory,  and  chestnut, 
where  their  serene,  leisurely  songs  ring  through  the  leafy 
arches  all  day  long,  but  especially  at  daybreak  and  in 
the  afternoons.  Baltimore  orioles,  beautiful  of  voice 
and  plumage,  hang  their  nests  in  a  young  elm  near  a 
corner  of  the  porch;  robins,  catbirds,  valiant  kingbirds, 
song-sparrows,  chippies,  bright  colored  thistle-finches, 
nest  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  house,  in  the  shrub- 
bery or  among  the  birches  and  maples;  grasshopper 
sparrows,  humble  little  creatures  with  insect-like  voices, 
nest  almost  as  close,  in  the  open  field,  just  beyond  the 
line  where  the  grass  is  kept  cut;  humming-birds  visit 
the  honeysuckles  and  trumpet-flowers;  chimney  swallows 
build  in  the  chimneys;  barn  swallows  nest  in  the  stable 
and  old  barn,  wrens  in  the  bushes  near  by.  Downy 
woodpeckers  and  many  other  birds  make  their  homes 
in  the  old  orchard;  during  the  migrations  it  is  alive 
with  warblers.  Towhees,  thrashers,  and  Maryland  yel- 
low-throats build  and  sing  in  the  hedges  by  the  garden; 
bush  sparrows  and  dainty  little  prairie  warblers  in  the 
cedar-grown  field  beyond.  Red-wing  blackbirds  haunt 
the  wet  places.  Chickadees  wander  everywhere;  the 
wood-pewees,  red-eyed  vireos,  and  black  and  white  creep- 
ers keep  to  the  tall  timber,  where  the  wary,  thievish 
jays  chatter,  and  the  great-crested  fly-catchers  flit  and 
scream.  In  the  early  spring,  when  the  woods  are  still 
bare,  when  the  hen-hawks  cry  as  they  soar  high  in  the 
upper  air,  and  the  flickers  call  and  drum  on  the  dead 
trees,  the  strong,  plaintive  note  of  the  meadow  lark  is 


344  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

one  of  the  most  noticeable  and  most  attractive  sounds. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  cooing  of  the  mourning  doves 
is  most  noticeable  in  the  still,  hot  summer  days.  In 
the  thick  tangles  chats  creep  and  flutter  and  jerk,  and 
chuckle  and  whoop  as  they  sing;  I  have  heard  them  sing 
by  night.  The  cedar  birds  offer  the  most  absolute  con- 
trast to  the  chats,  in  voice,  manner,  and  habits.  They 
never  hide,  they  are  never  fussy  or  noisy;  they  always 
behave  as  if  they  were  so  well-bred  that  it  is  impossible 
to  resent  the  inroads  the  soft,  quiet,  pretty  creatures  make 
among  the  cherries.  One  flicker  became  possessed  of  a 
mania  to  dig  its  hole  in  one  corner  of  the  house,  just 
under  the  roof.  It  hammered  lustily  at  boards  and 
shingles,  and  returned  whenever  driven  away;  until  at 
last  we  were  reluctantly  forced  to  decree  its  death.  Oven- 
birds  are  very  plentiful,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  their 
flight  song  is  more  frequently  given  after  dusk  than  in 
daylight.  It  is  sometimes  given  when  the  whippoor- 
wills  are  calling.  In  late  June  evenings,  especially  by 
moonlight,  but  occasionally  even  when  the  night  is  dark, 
we  hear  this  song  from  the  foot  of  the  hill  where  the 
woods  begin.  There  seems  to  be  one  particular  corner 
where  year  after  year  one  or  more  oven-birds  dwell 
which  possess  an  especial  fondness  for  this  night-sing- 
ing in  the  air.  If  is  a  pity  the  little  eared  owl  is  called 
screech-owl.  Its  tremulous,  quavering  cry  is  not  a 
screech  at  all,  and  has  an  attraction  of  its  own.  These 
little  owls  come  up  to  the  house  after  dark,  and  are  fond 
of  sitting  on  the  elk  antlers  over  the  gable.  When  the 
moon  is  up,  by  choosing  one's  position,  the  little  owl 


ALGONQUIN    AND   SKIP 


-   .- 


AT   HOME  345 

appears  in  sharp  outline  against  the  bright  disk,  seated 
on  his  many-tined  perch. 

The  neighborhood  of  Washington  abounds  in  birds 
no  less  than  in  flowers.  There  have  been  one  or  two 
rather  curious  changes  among  its  birds  since  John  Bur- 
roughs wrote  of  them  forty  years  ago.  He  speaks  of  the 
red-headed  woodpecker  as  being  then  one  of  the  most 
abundant  of  all  birds — even  more  so  than  the  robin.  It 
is  not  uncommon  now,  and  a  pair  have  for  three  years 
nested  in  the  White  House  grounds;  but  it  is  at  present 
by  no  means  an  abundant  bird.  On  the  other  hand,  John 
Burroughs  never  saw  any  mocking-birds,  whereas  during 
the  last  few  years  these  have  been  increasing  in  numbers, 
and  there  are  now  several  places  within  easy  walking  or 
riding  distance  where  we  are  almost  sure  to  find  them. 
The  mocking-bird  is  as  conspicuous  as  it  is  attractive, 
and  when  at  its  best  it  is  the  sweetest  singer  of  all  birds; 
though  its  talent  for  mimicry,  and  a  certain  odd  perversity 
in  its  nature,  often  combine  to  mar  its  performances.  The 
way  it  flutters  and  dances  in  the  air  when  settling  in  a 
tree-top,  its  alert  intelligence,  its  good  looks,  and  the  com- 
parative ease  with  which  it  can  be  made  friendly  and 
familiar,  all  add  to  its  charm.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that 
it  does  not  nest  in  the  White  House  grounds.  Neither 
does  the  wood-thrush,  which  is  so  abundant  in  Rock 
Creek  Park,  within  the  city  limits.  Numbers  of  robins, 
song-sparrows,  sputtering,  creaking  purple  grakles — 
crow  blackbirds — and  catbirds  nest  in  the  grounds.  So,  I 
regret  to  say,  do  crows,  the  sworn  foes  of  all  small  birds, 
and  as  such  entitled  to  no  mercy.  The  hearty,  whole- 


346  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

some,  vigorous  songs  of  the  robins,  and  the  sweet,  home- 
like strains  of  the  song-sparrows  are  the  first  to  be  regu- 
larly heard  in  the  grounds,  and  they  lead  the  chorus. 
The  catbirds  chime  in  later;  they  are  queer,  familiar, 
strongly  individual  birds,  and  are  really  good  singers; 
but  they  persist  in  interrupting  their  songs  with  cat- 
like squalling.  Two  or  three  pairs  of  flickers  nest 
with  us,  as  well  as  the  red-headed  woodpeckers  above 
mentioned;  and  a  pair  of  furtive  cuckoos.  A  pair  of 
orchard  orioles  nested  with  us  one  spring,  but  not 
again;  the  redstarts,  warbling  vireos,  and  summer  war- 
blers have  been  more  faithful.  Baltimore  orioles  fre- 
quently visit  us,  as  do  the  scarlet  tanagers  and  tufted 
titmice,  but  for  some  reason  they  have  not  nested  here. 
This  spring  a  cardinal  bird  took  up  his  abode  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  White  House,  and  now  and  then 
waked  us  in  the  morning  by  his  vigorous  whistling  in 
a  magnolia  tree  just  outside  our  windows.  A  Carolina 
wren  also  spent  the  winter  with  us,  and  sang  freely. 
In  both  spring  and  fall  the  white-throated  sparrows 
sing  while  stopping  over  in  the  course  of  their  migra- 
tions. Their  delicate,  plaintive,  musical  notes  are  among 
the  most  attractive  of  bird  sounds.  In  the  early  spring 
we  sometimes  hear  the  fox-sparrows  and  tree-sparrows, 
and  of  course  the  twittering  snow-birds.  Later  war- 
blers of  many  kinds  throng  the  trees  around  the  house. 
Rabbits  breed  in  the  grounds,  and  every  now  and  then 
possums  wander  into  them.  Gray  squirrels  are  numer- 
ous, and  some  of  them  so  tame  that  they  will  eat  out  of 
our  hands.  In  spring  they  cut  the  flowers  from  the  stately 


PETER   RABBIT 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1904,  by  E.  S.  Curtis 


AT   HOME  347 

tulip  trees.  In  the  hot  June  days  the  indigo  birds  are 
especially  in  evidence  among  the  singers  around  Wash- 
ington ;  they  do  not  mind  the  heat  at  all,  but  perch  in  the 
tops  of  little  trees  in  the  full  glare  of  the  sun,  and  chant 
their  not  very  musical,  but  to  my  ears  rather  pleasing, 
song  throughout  the  long  afternoons.  This  June  two  new 
guests  came  to  the  White  House  in  the  shape  of  two  little 
saw-whet  owls;  little  bits  of  fellows,  with  round  heads, 
and  no  head  tufts,  or  "  ears."  I  think  they  were  the 
young  of  the  year;  they  never  uttered  the  saw-whet 
sound,  but  made  soft  snoring  noises.  They  always  ap- 
peared after  nightfall,  when  we  were  sitting  on  the  south 
porch,  in  the  warm,  starlit  darkness.  They  were  fear- 
less and  unsuspicious.  Sometimes  they  flew  noiselessly  to 
and  fro,  and  seemingly  caught  big  insects  on  the  wing. 
At  other  times  they  would  perch  on  the  iron  awning- 
bars,  directly  overhead.  Once  one  of  them  perched  over 
one  of  the  windows,  and  sat  motionless,  looking  exactly 
like  an  owl  of  Pallas  Athene. 

At  Sagamore  Hill  we  like  to  have  the  wood-folk  and 
field-folk  familiar;  but  there  are  necessary  bounds  to  such 
familiarity  where  chickens  are  kept  for  use  and  where 
the  dogs  are  valued  family  friends.  The  rabbits  and  gray 
squirrels  are  as  plenty  as  ever.  The  flying  squirrels  and 
chipmunks  still  hold  their  own;  so  do  the  muskrats  in 
the  marshes.  The  woodchucks,  which  we  used  to  watch 
as  we  sat  in  rocking-chairs  on  the  broad  veranda,  have 
disappeared;  but  recently  one  has  made  himself  a  home 
under  the  old  barn,  where  we  are  doing  our  best  to  pro- 
tect him.  A  mink  which  lived  by  the  edge  of  the  bay 


348  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

under  a  great  pile  of  lumber  had  to  be  killed;  its  lair 
showed  the  remains  not  only  of  chickens  and  ducks,  but 
of  two  muskrats,  and,  what  was  rather  curious,  of  two 
skates  or  flatfish.  A  fox  which  lived  in  the  big  wood  lot 
evidently  disliked  our  companionship  and  abandoned  his 
home.  Of  recent  years  I  have  actually  seen  but  one  fox 
near  Sagamore  Hill.  This  was  early  one  morning,  when 
I  had  spent  the  night  camping  on  the  wooded  shores  near 
the  mouth  of  Huntington  Harbor.  The  younger  chil- 
dren were  with  me,  this  being  one  of  the  camping-out 
trips,  in  rowboats,  on  the  Sound,  taken  especially  for  their 
benefit.  We  had  camped  the  previous  evening  in  a  glade 
by  the  edge  of  a  low  sea-bluff,  far  away  from  any  house ; 
and  while  the  children  were  intently  watching  me  as  I 
fried  strips  of  beefsteak  and  thin  slices  of  potatoes  in 
bacon  fat,  we  heard  a  fox  barking  in  the  woods.  This 
gave  them  a  delightfully  wild  feeling,  and  with  re- 
freshing confidence  they  discussed  the  likelihood  of 
seeing  it  next  morning;  and  to  my  astonishment  see 
it  we  did,  on  the  shore,  soon  after  we  started  to  row 
home. 

One  pleasant  fall  morning  in  1892  I  was  writing  in 
the  gun-room,  on  the  top  floor  of  the  house,  from  the 
windows  of  which  one  can  see  far  over  the  Sound.  Sud- 
denly my  small  boy  of  five  bustled  up  in  great  excite- 
ment to  tell  me  that  the  hired-man  had  come  back  from 
the  wood-pile  pond — a  muddy  pool  in  a  beech  and 
hickory  grove  a  few  hundred  yards  from  the  house — to 
say  that  he  had  seen  a  coon  and  that  I  should  come 
down  at  once  with  my  rifle;  for  Davis,  the  colored  gar- 


AT   HOME  349 

dener,  had  been  complaining  much  about  the  loss  of  his 
chickens  and  did  not  know  whether  the  malefactor  was 
a  coon  or  a  mink.  Accordingly,  I  picked  up  a  rifle  and 
trotted  down  to  the  pond  holding  it  in  one  hand,  while 
the  little  boy  trotted  after  me,  affectionately  clasping  the 
butt.  Sure  enough,  in  a  big  blasted  chestnut  close  to 
the  pond  was  the  coon,  asleep  in  a  shallow  hollow  of 
the  trunk,  some  forty  feet  from  the  ground.  It  was  a 
very  exposed  place  for  a  coon  to  lie  during  the  daytime, 
but  this  was  a  bold  fellow  and  seemed  entirely  undis- 
turbed by  our  voices.  He  was  altogether  too  near  the 
house,  or  rather  the  chicken-coops,  to  be  permitted  to 
stay  where  he  was — especially  as  but  a  short  time  before 
I  had,  with  mistaken  soft-heartedness,  spared  a  possum 
I  found  on  the  place — and  accordingly  I  raised  my  rifle; 
then  I  remembered  for  the  first  time  that  the  rear  sight 
was  off,  as  I  had  taken  it  out  for  some  reason;  and  in 
consequence  I  underwent  the  humiliation  of  firing  two 
or  three  shots  in  vain  before  I  got  the  coon.  As  he 
fell  out  of  the  tree  the  little  boy  pounced  gleefully  on 
him;  fortunately  he  was  dead,  and  we  walked  back  to 
the  house  in  triumph,  each  holding  a  hind  leg  of  the 
quarry. 

The  possum  spoken  of  above  was  found  in  a  dogwood 
tree  not  more  than  eighty  yards  from  the  house,  one  after- 
noon when  we  were  returning  from  a  walk  in  the  woods. 
As  something  had  been  killing  the  hens,  I  felt  that  it  was 
at  least  under  suspicion  and  that  I  ought  to  kill  it,  but 
a  possum  is  such  an  absurd  creature  that  I  could  not 
resist  playing  with  it  for  some  time;  after  that  I  felt  that 


350  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

to  kill  it  in  cold-blood  would  be  too  much  like  murder, 
and  let  it  go.  This  tender-heartedness  was  regarded  as 
much  misplaced  both  by  farmer  and  gardener;  hence  the 
coon  suffered. 

A  couple  of  years  later,  on  a  clear,  cold  Thanksgiving 
Day,  we  had  walked  off  some  five  miles  to  chop  out  a 
bridle-path  which  had  become  choked  with  down-tim- 
ber; the  two  elder  of  our  little  boys  were  with  us.  The 
sun  had  set  long  ere  our  return;  we  wrere  walking  home 
on  a  road  through  our  own  woods  and  were  near  the 
house.  We  had  with  us  a  stanch  friend,  a  large  yel- 
low dog,  which  one  of  the  children,  with  fine  disregard 
for  considerations  of  sex,  had  named  Susan.  Suddenly 
Susan  gave  tongue  off  in  the  woods  to  one  side  and  we 
found  he  had  treed  a  possum.  This  time  I  was  hard- 
hearted and  the  possum  fell  a  victim;  the  five-year-old 
boy  explaining  to  the  seven-year-old  that  "  it  was  the 
first  time  he  had  ever  seen  a  fellow  killed." 

Susan  was  one  of  many  dogs  whose  lives  were  a  joy 
and  whose  deaths  were  a  real  grief  to  the  family;  among 
them  and  their  successors  are  or  have  been  Sailor  Boy, 
the  Chesapeake  Bay  dog,  who  not  only  loves  guns,  but 
also  fireworks  and  rockets,  and  who  exercises  a  close  and 
delighted  supervision  over  every  detail  of  each  Fourth 
of  July  celebration;  Alan  and  Jessie,  the  Scotch  ter- 
riers; and  Jack,  the  most  loved  of  all,  a  black  smooth- 
haired  Manchester  terrier.  Jack  lived  in  the  house; 
the  others  outside,  ever  on  the  lookout  to  join  the  family 
in  rambles  through  the  woods.  Jack  was  human  in  his 
intelligence  and  affection;  he  learned  all  kinds  of  tricks, 


AT    HOME  351 

was  a  high-bred  gentleman,  never  brawled,  and  was  a 
dauntless  fighter.  Besides  the  family,  his  especial  friend, 
playfellow,  and  teacher  was  colored  Charles,  the  foot- 
man at  Washington.  Skip,  the  little  black-and-tan  ter- 
rier that  I  brought  back  from  the  Colorado  bear  hunt, 
changed  at  once  into  a  real  little-boy's  dog.  He  never 
lets  his  small  master  out  of  his  sight,  and  rides  on  every 
horse  that  will  let  him — by  preference  on  Algonquin  the 
sheltie,  whose  nerves  are  of  iron. 

The  first  night  possum  hunt  in  which  I  ever  took  part 
was  at  Quantico,  on  the  Virginia  side  of  the  Potomac, 
some  twenty  miles  below  Washington.  It  was  a  number 
of  years  ago,  and  several  of  us  were  guests  of  a  loved 
friend,  Hallett  Phillips,  since  dead.  Although  no  hunter, 
Phillips  was  devoted  to  outdoor  life.  I  think  it  was  at 
this  time  that  Rudyard  Kipling  had  sent  him  the  manu- 
script of  "  The  Feet  of  the  Young  Men,"  which  he  read 
aloud  to  us. 

Quantico  is  an  island,  a  quaint,  delightful  place,  with 
a  club-house.  We  started  immediately  after  dark,  going 
across  to  the  mainland,  accompanied  by  a  dozen  hounds, 
with  three  or  four  negroes  to  manage  them  and  serve  as 
axemen.  Each  member  of  the  party  carried  a  torch, 
as  without  one  it  was  impossible  to  go  at  any  speed 
through  the  woods.  The  dogs,  of  course,  have  to  be  spe- 
cially trained  not  to  follow  either  fox  or  rabbit.  It  was 
dawn  before  we  got  back,  wet,  muddy,  and  weary,  carry- 
ing eleven  possums.  All  night  long  we  rambled  through 
the  woods  and  across  the  fields,  the  dogs  working  about 
us  as  we  followed  in  single  file.  After  a  while  some  dog 


352  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

would  strike  a  trail.  It  might  take  some  time  to  puzzle 
it  out;  then  the  whole  pack  would  be  away,  and  all  the 
men  ran  helter-skelter  after  them,  plunging  over  logs  and 
through  swamps,  and  now  and  then  taking  headers  in 
the  darkness.  We  were  never  fortunate  enough  to  strike 
a  coon,  which  would  have  given  a  good  run  and  a  fight 
at  the  end  of  it.  When  the  unfortunate  possum  was  over- 
taken on  the  ground  he  was  killed  before  we  got  up. 
Otherwise  he  was  popped  alive  into  one  of  the  big  bags 
carried  by  the  axemen.  Two  or  three  times  he  got  into  a 
hollow  log  or  hole  and  we  dug  or  chopped  him  out.  Gen- 
erally, however,  he  went  up  a  tree.  It  was  a  picturesque 
sight,  in  the  flickering  glare  of  the  torches,  to  see  the  dogs 
leaping  up  around  the  trunk  of  a  tree  and  finally  to  make 
out  the  possum  clinging  to  the  trunk  or  perched  on  some 
slender  branch,  his  eyes  shining  brightly  through  the 
darkness ;  or  to  watch  the  muscular  grace  with  which  the 
darky  axemen,  ragged  and  sinewy,  chopped  into  any  tree 
if  it  had  too  large  and  smooth  a  trunk  to  climb.  A  pos- 
sum is  a  queer,  sluggish  creature,  whose  brain  seems  to 
work  more  like  that  of  some  reptile  than  like  a  mam- 
mal's. When  one  is  found  in  a  tree  there  is  no  difficulty 
whatever  in  picking  it  off  with  the  naked  hand.  Two 
or  three  times  during  the  night  I  climbed  the  tree  myself, 
either  going  from  branch  to  branch  or  swarming  up  some 
tangle  of  grape-vines.  The  possum  opened  his  mouth  as 
I  approached  and  looked  as  menacing  as  he  knew  how; 
but  if  I  pulled  him  by  the  tail  he  forgot  everything  ex- 
cept trying  to  grab  with  all  four  feet,  and  then  I  could 
take  him  by  the  back  of  the  neck  and  lift  him  off — either 


AT   HOME  353 

carrying  him  down,  held  gingerly  at  arm's  length,  or 
dropping  him  into  the  open  mouth  of  a  bag  if  I  felt  suf- 
ficiently sure  of  my  aim. 

In  the  spring  of  1903,  while  in  western  Kansas,  a  little 
girl  gave  me  a  baby  badger,  captured  by  her  brother,  and 
named  after  him,  Josiah.  I  took  Josiah  home  to  Saga- 
more Hill,  where  the  children  received  him  literally  with 
open  arms,  while  even  the  dogs  finally  came  to  tolerate 
him.  He  grew  apace,  and  was  a  quaint  and  on  the  whole 
a  friendly — though  occasionally  short-tempered — pet. 
He  played  tag  with  us  with  inexhaustible  energy,  looking 
much  like  a  small  mattress  with  a  leg  at  each  corner;  he 
dug  holes  with  marvellous  rapidity;  and  when  he  grew 
snappish  we  lifted  him  up  by  the  back  of  the  neck,  which 
rendered  him  harmless.  He  ate  bread  and  milk,  dead 
mice  and  birds,  and  eggs;  he  would  take  a  hen's  egg  in 
his  mouth,  break  it,  and  avoid  spilling  any  of  the  contents. 
When  angered,  he  hissed,  and  at  other  times  he  made  low 
guttural  sounds.  The  nine-year-old  boy  became  his  espe- 
cial friend.  Now  and  then  he  nipped  the  little  boy's 
legs,  but  this  never  seemed  to  interrupt  the  amicable  rela- 
tions between  the  two;  as  the  little  boy  normally  wore 
neither  shoes  nor  stockings,  and  his  blue  overalls  were 
thin,  Josiah  probably  found  the  temptation  at  times  irre- 
sistible. If  on  such  occasions  the  boy  was  in  Josiah's 
wire-fenced  enclosure,  he  sat  on  a  box  with  his  legs  tucked 
under  him;  if  the  play  was  taking  place  outside,  he 
usually  climbed  into  the  hammock,  while  Josiah  pranced 
and  capered  clumsily  beneath,  tail  up  and  head  thrown 
back.  But  Josiah  never  bit  when  picked  up ;  although 


354  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

he  hissed  like  a  teakettle  as  the  little  boy  carried  him 
about,  usually  tightly  clasped  round  where  his  waist 
would  have  been  if  he  had  had  one. 

At  different  times  I  have  been  given  a  fairly  appalling 
number  of  animals,  from  known  and  unknown  friends;  in 
one  year  the  list  included — besides  a  lion,  a  hyena,  and  a 
zebra  from  the  Emperor  of  Ethiopia — five  bears,  a  wild- 
cat, a  coyote,  two  macaws,  an  eagle,  a  barn  owl,  and  sev- 
eral snakes  and  lizards.  Most  of  these  went  to  the  Zoo, 
but  a  few  were  kept  by  the  children.  Those  thus  kept 
numbered  at  one  end  of  the  scale  gentle,  trustful,  pretty 
things,  like  kangaroo  rats  and  flying  squirrels ;  and  at  the 
other  end  a  queer-tempered  young  black  bear,  which  the 
children  named  Jonathan  Edwards,  partly  because  of  cer- 
tain well-marked  Calvinistic  tendencies  in  his  disposition, 
partly  out  of  compliment  to  their  mother,  whose  ances- 
tors included  that  Puritan  divine.  The  kangaroo  rats  and 
flying  squirrels  slept  in  their  pockets  and  blouses,  went  to 
school  with  them,  and  sometimes  unexpectedly  appeared 
at  breakfast  or  dinner.  The  bear  added  zest  to  life  in 
more  ways  than  one.  When  we  took  him  to  walk,  it  was 
always  with  a  chain  and  club ;  and  when  at  last  he  went 
to  the  Zoo,  the  entire  household  breathed  a  sigh  of  relief, 
although  I  think  the  dogs  missed  him,  as  he  had  occa- 
sionally yielded  them  the  pleasure  of  the  chase  in  its 
strongest  form. 

As  a  steady  thing,  the  children  found  rabbits  and 
guinea  pigs  the  most  satisfactory  pets.  The  guinea  pigs 
usually  rejoiced  in  the  names  of  the  local  or  national 
celebrities  of  the  moment;  at  one  time  there  were  five, 


JOSIAH 


AT   HOME  355 

which  were  named  after  naval  heroes  and  friendly  ecclesi- 
astical dignitaries — an  Episcopalian  Bishop,  a  Catholic 
Priest,  and  my  own  Dutch  Reformed  Pastor — Bishop 
Doane7  Father  O'Grady,  Dr.  Johnson,  Fighting  Bob 
Evans,  and  Admiral  Dewey.  Father  O'Grady,  by  the 
way,  proved  to  be  of  the  softer  sex;  a  fact  definitely  estab- 
lished when  two  of  his  joint  owners,  rushing  breathless 
into  the  room,  announced  to  a  mixed  company,  "  Oh,  oh, 
Father  O'Grady  has  had  some  children! " 

Of  course  there  are  no  pets  like  horses;  and  horse- 
manship is  a  test  of  prowess.  The  best  among  vigorous 
out-of-door  sports  should  be  more  than  pastimes.  Play 
is  good  for  play's  sake,  within  moderate  limits,  especially 
if  it  is  athletic  play;  and,  again  within  moderate  limits, 
it  is  good  because  a  healthy  body  helps  toward  healthi- 
ness of  mind.  But  if  play  serves  only  either  of  these 
ends,  it  does  not  deserve  the  serious  consideration  which 
rightly  attaches  to  play  which  in  itself  fits  a  man  to  do 
things  worth  doing;  and  there  exists  no  creature  much 
more  contemptible  than  a  man  past  his  first  youth  who 
leads  a  life  devoted  to  mere  sport,  without  thought  of  the 
serious  work  of  life.  In  a  free  Government  the  average 
citizen  should  be  able  to  do  his  duty  in  war  as  well  as  in 
peace;  otherwise  he  falls  short.  Cavalrymen  and  infan- 
trymen, who  do  not  need  special  technical  knowledge,  are 
easily  developed  out  of  men  who  are  already  soldiers  in 
the  rough,  that  is,  who,  in  addition  to  the  essential  quali- 
ties of  manliness  and  character,  the  qualities  of  resolution, 
daring  and  intelligence,  which  go  to  make  up  the  "  fight- 
ing edge,"  also  possess  physical  hardihood ;  who  can  live 


356  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

in  the  open,  walk  long  distances,  ride,  shoot,  and  endure 
fatigue,  hardship,  and  exposure.  But  if  all  these  traits 
must  be  painfully  acquired,  then  it  takes  a  long  time  in- 
deed before  the  man  can  be  turned  into  a  good  soldier. 
Now,  there  is  little  tendency  to  develop  these  traits  in  our 
highly  complex,  rather  over-civilized,  modern  industrial 
life,  and  therefore  the  sports  which  produce  them  serve 
a  useful  purpose.  Hence,  when  able  to  afford  a  horse, 
or  to  practise  on  a  rifle  range,  one  can  feel  that  the  enjoy- 
ment is  warranted  by  what  may  be  called  considerations 
of  national  ethics. 

As  with  everything  else,  so  with  riding;  some  take  to 
it  naturally,  others  never  can  become  even  fairly  good 
horsemen.  All  the  children  ride,  with  varying  skill. 
While  young,  a  Shetland  pony  serves;  the  present  pony, 
Algonquin,  a  calico  or  pinto,  being  as  knowing  and 
friendly  as  possible.  His  first  small  owner  simply  adored 
him,  treating  him  as  a  twin  brother,  and  having  implicit 
faith  in  his  mental  powers.  On  one  occasion,  when  a 
naval  officer  of  whom  the  children  were  fond  came  to 
call,  in  full  dress,  Algonquin's  master,  who  was  much 
impressed  by  the  sight,  led  up  Algonquin  to  enjoy  it  too, 
and  was  shocked  by  the  entire  indifference  with  which  the 
greedy  pony  persisted  in  eating  grass.  One  favorite  polo 
pony,  old  Diamond,  long  after  he  became  a  pensioner, 
served  for  whichever  child  had  just  graduated  from  the 
sheltie.  Next  in  order  was  a  little  mare  named  Yagenka, 
after  the  heroine  of  one  of  Sienkewicz's  blood-curdling 
romances  of  mediaeval  Poland.  When  every  rideable 
animal  is  impressed,  all  the  children  sometimes  go  out 


BLEISTEIN  JUMPING 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1902,  by  Clinedinst,  Washington,  D.  C. 


' '  •  : 
•  •  •   »     <»«-'>•    '  •- 


AT   HOME  357 

with  their  mother  and  me;  looking  much  like  the  Cum- 
berbatch  family  in  Caldecott's  pictures. 

Of  recent  years  I  have  not  been  able  to  ride  to  hounds ; 
but  when  opportunity  has  offered  I  have  kept  as  saddle 
horses  one  or  two  hunters,  so  that  instead  of  riding  the 
road  I  could  strike  off  across  country;  the  hunter  scram- 
bling handily  through  rough  places,  and  jumping  an  oc- 
casional fence  if  necessary.  While  in  Washington  this 
is  often,  except  for  an  occasional  long  walk  down  Rock 
Creek  or  along  the  Virginia  side  of  the  Potomac,  the 
only  exercise  I  can  get.  Among  the  various  horses  I  have 
owned  in  recent  years  Bleistein  was  the  one  I  liked  best, 
because  of  his  good  nature  and  courage.  He  was  a  fair, 
although  in  no  way  a  remarkable,  jumper.  One  day, 
May  3,  1902,  I  took  him  out  to  Chevy  Chase  and  had 
him  photographed  while  jumping  various  fences  and 
brush  hurdles;  the  accompanying  picture  is  from  one  of 
these  photos.  Another  hunter,  Renown,  was  a  much 
higher,  but  an  uncertain,  jumper.  He  was  a  beau- 
tiful horse,  and  very  good-tempered,  but  excessively 
timid. 

We  have  been  able  to  fix  a  rifle  range  at  Sagamore, 
though  only  up  to  200  yards.  Some  of  the  children  take 
to  shooting  naturally,  others  can  only  with  difficulty  be 
made  to  learn  the  rudiments  of  what  they  regard  as  a 
tiresome  business.  Many  friends  have  shot  on  this  range. 
We  use  only  sporting  rifles;  my  own  is  one  of  the  new 
model  Government  Springfields,  stocked  and  sighted  to 
suit  myself.  For  American  game  the  modern  small  cali- 
bre, high  power,  smokeless  powder  rifle,  of  any  one 


358  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

among  several  makes,  is  superseding  the  others ;  although 
for  some  purposes  an  old  45-70  or  45-90,  even  with  black 
powder,  is  as  good  as  any  modern  weapon,  and  for  very 
heavy  game  the  calibre  should  be  larger  than  that  of  the 
typical  modern  arm,  with  a  heavier  ball  and  more 
powder.  But  after  all,  any  good  modern  rifle  is  good 
enough ;  when  a  certain  pitch  of  excellence  in  the  weapon 
has  been  attained,  then  the  determining  factor  in  achiev- 
ing success  is  the  quality  of  the  man  behind  the  gun. 

My  eldest  boy  killed  his  first  buck  just  before  he  was 
fourteen,  and  his  first  moose — a  big  bull  with  horns 
which  spread  56  inches — just  before  he  was  seventeen. 
Both  were  killed  in  the  wilderness,  in  the  great  north 
woods,  on  trips  sufficiently  hard  to  afford  some  test  of 
endurance  and  skill.  Such  a  hunting  trip  is  even  more 
than  a  delightful  holiday,  provided  the  work  is  hard  as 
well  as  enjoyable;  and  therefore  it  must  be  taken  in  the 
wilderness.  Big  private  preserves  may  serve  a  useful 
purpose  if  managed  with  such  judgment  and  kindliness 
that  the  good  will  of  the  neighborhood  is  secured;  but 
the  sport  in  them  somehow  seems  to  have  lost  its  savor, 
even  though  they  may  be  large  enough  to  give  the  chance 
of  testing  a  man's  woodcraft  no  less  than  his  marksman- 
ship. I  have  but  once  hunted  in  one  of  them.  That 
was  in  the  fall  .of  1902,  when  Senator  Proctor  took  me 
into  the  Corbin  Park  game  preserve  in  New  Hampshire. 
The  Senator  is  not  merely  a  good  shot;  he  is  a  good 
hunter,  with  the  eye,  the  knowledge  of  the  game,  and  the 
ability  to  take  advantage  of  cover  and  walk  silently, 
which  are  even  more  important  than  straight  powder. 


AT    HOME  359 

He  took  me  out  alone  for  the  afternoon,  and,  besides  the 
tame  buffalo,  he  showed  me  one  elk  and  over  twenty  deer. 
We  were  only  after  the  wild  boar,  which  have  flourished 
wonderfully.  Just  at  dusk  we  saw  a  three-year-old  boar 
making  his  way  toward  an  old  deserted  orchard;  and 
creeping  up,  I  shot  him  as  he  munched  apples  under  one 
of  the  trees. 


CHAPTER   XII 

IN  THE  LOUISIANA  CANEBRAKES 

IN  October,  1907,  I  spent  a  fortnight  in  the  cane- 
brakes  of  northern  Louisiana,  my  hosts  being  Messrs. 
John  M.  Parker  and  John  A.  Mcllhenny.  Surgeon- 
General  Rixey,  of  the  United  States  Navy,  and  Dr.  Alex- 
ander Lambert  were  with  me.  I  was  especially  anxious 
to  kill  a  bear  in  these  canebrakes  after  the  fashion  of  the 
old  Southern  planters,  who  for  a  century  past  have  fol- 
lowed the  bear  with  horse,  hound  and  horn  in  Louisiana, 
Mississippi  and  Arkansas. 

Our  first  camp  was  on  Tensas  Bayou.  This  is  in  the 
heart  of  the  great  alluvial  bottom-land  created  during 
the  countless  ages  through  which  the  mighty  Mississippi 
has  poured  out  of  the  heart  of  the  continent.  It  is  in  the 
black  belt  of  the  South,  in  which  the  negroes  outnumber 
the  whites  four  or  five  to  one,  the  disproportion  in  the 
region  in  which  I  was  actually  hunting  being  far  greater. 
There  is  no  richer  soil  in  all  the  earth ;  and  when,  as  will 
soon  be  the  case,  the  chances  of  disaster  from  flood  are 
over,  I  believe  the  whole  land  will  be  cultivated  and 
densely  peopled.  At  present  the  possibility  of  such  flood 
is  a  terrible  deterrent  to  settlement,  for  when  the  Father 
of  Waters  breaks  his  boundaries  he  turns  the  country 
for  a  breadth  of  eighty  miles  into  one  broad  river,  the 
plantations  throughout  all  this  vast  extent  being  from 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES   361 

five  to  twenty  feet  under  water.  Cotton  is  the  staple 
industry,  corn  also  being  grown,  while  there  are  a  few 
rice  fields  and  occasional  small  patches  of  sugar  cane. 
The  plantations  are  for  the  most  part  of  large  size  and 
tilled  by  negro  tenants  for  the  white  owners.  Condi- 
tions are  still  in  some  respects  like  those  of  the  pioneer 
days.  The  magnificent  forest  growth  which  covers  the 
land  is  of  little  value  because  of  the  difficulty  in  getting 
the  trees  to  market,  and  the  land  is  actually  worth  more 
after  the  timber  has  been  removed  than  before.  In  con- 
sequence, the  larger  trees  are  often  killed  by  girdling, 
where  the  work  of  felling  them  would  entail  dispropor- 
tionate cost  and  labor.  At  dusk,  with  the  sunset  glimmer- 
ing in  the  west,  or  in  the  brilliant  moonlight  when  the 
moon  is  full,  the  cotton  fields  have  a  strange  spectral  look, 
with  the  dead  trees  raising  aloft  their  naked  branches. 
The  cotton  fields  themselves,  when  the  bolls  burst  open, 
seem  almost  as  if  whitened  by  snow;  and  the  red  and 
white  flowers,  interspersed  among  the  burst-open  pods, 
make  the  whole  field  beautiful.  The  rambling  one-story 
houses,  surrounded  by  outbuildings,  have  a  picturesque- 
ness  all  their  own;  their  very  looks  betoken  the  lavish, 
whole-hearted,  generous  hospitality  of  the  planters  who 
dwell  therein. 

Beyond  the  end  of  cultivation  towers  the  great  forest. 
Wherever  the  water  stands  in  pools,  and  by  the  edges  of 
the  lakes  and  bayous,  the  giant  cypress  looms  aloft, 
rivalled  in  size  by  some  of  the  red  gums  and  white  oaks. 
In  stature,  in  towering  majesty,  they  are  unsurpassed  by 
any  trees  of  our  eastern  forests;  lordlier  kings  of  the 


362  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

green-leaved  world  are  not  to  be  found  until  we  reach 
the  sequoias  and  red-woods  of  the  Sierras.  Among  them 
grow  many  other  trees — hackberry,  thorn,  honey  locust, 
tupelo,  pecan  and  ash.  In  the  cypress  sloughs  the  singu- 
lar knees  of  the  trees  stand  two  or  three  feet  above  the 
black  ooze.  Palmettos  grow  thickly  in  places.  The  cane- 
brakes  stretch  along  the  slight  rises  of  ground,  often  ex- 
tending for  miles,  forming  one  of  the  most  striking  and 
interesting  features  of  the  country.  They  choke  out  other 
growth,  the  feathery,  graceful  canes  standing  tall,  slen- 
der, serried,  each  but  a  few  inches  from  his  brother,  and 
springing  to  a  height  of  fifteen  or  twenty  feet.  They  look 
like  bamboos ;  they  are  well-nigh  impenetrable  for  a  man 
on  horseback;  even  on  foot  they  make  difficult  walking 
unless  free  use  is  made  of  the  heavy  bushknife.  It  is  im- 
possible to  see  through  them  for  more  than  fifteen  or 
twenty  paces,  and  often  for  not  half  that  distance.  Bears 
make  their  lairs  in  them,  and  they  are  the  refuge  for 
hunted  things.  Outside  of  them,  in  the  swamp,  bushes 
of  many  kinds  grow  thick  among  the  tall  trees,  and  vines 
and  creepers  climb  the  trunks  and  hang  in  trailing  fes- 
toons from  the  branches.  Here  likewise  the  bushknife 
is  in  constant  play,  as  the  skilled  horsemen  thread  their 
way,  often  at  a  gallop,  in  and  out  among  the  great  tree 
trunks,  and  through  the  dense,  tangled,  thorny  under- 
growth. 

In  the  lakes  and  larger  bayous  we  saw  alligators  and 
garfish;  and  monstrous  snapping  turtles,  fearsome  brutes 
of  the  slime,  as  heavy  as  a  man,  and  with  huge  horny 
beaks  that  with  a  single  snap  could  take  off  a  man's  hand 


IN    THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES   363 

or  foot.  One  of  the  planters  with  us  had  lost  part  of  his 
hand  by  the  bite  of  an  alligator;  and  had  seen  a  compan- 
ion seized  by  the  foot  by  a  huge  garfish  from  which  he 
was  rescued  with  the  utmost  difficulty  by  his  fellow- 
swimmers.  There  were  black  bass  in  the  waters  too,  and 
they  gave  us  many  a  good  meal.  Thick-bodied  water 
moccasins,  foul  and  dangerous,  kept  near  the  water;  and 
farther  back  in  the  swamp  we  found  and  killed  rattle- 
snakes and  copperheads. 

Coon  and  possum  were  very  plentiful,  and  in  the 
streams  there  were  minks  and  a  few  otters.  Black  squir- 
rels barked  in  the  tops  of  the  tall  trees  or  descended  to  the 
ground  to  gather  nuts  or  gnaw  the  shed  deer  antlers — the 
latter  a  habit  they  shared  with  the  wood  rats.  To  me  the 
most  interesting  of  the  smaller  mammals,  however,  were 
the  swamp  rabbits,  which  are  thoroughly  amphibious  in 
their  habits,  not  only  swimming  but  diving,  and  taking 
to  the  water  almost  as  freely  as  if  they  were  muskrats. 
They  lived  in  the  depths  of  the  woods  and  beside  the 
lonely  bayous. 

Birds  were  plentiful.  Mocking  birds  abounded  in 
the  clearings,  where,  among  many  sparrows  of  more  com- 
mon kind,  I  saw  the  painted  finch,  the  gaudily  colored 
brother  of  our  little  indigo  bunting,  though  at  this  season 
his  plumage  was  faded  and  dim.  In  the  thick  woods 
where  we  hunted  there  were  many  cardinal  birds  and 
Carolina  wrens,  both  in  full  song.  Thrashers  were  even 
more  common;  but  so  cautious  that  it  was  rather  difficult 
to  see  them,  in  spite  of  their  incessant  clucking  and  call- 
ing and  their  occasional  bursts  of  song.  There  were 


364  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

crowds  of  warblers  and  vireos  of  many  different  kinds, 
evidently  migrants  from  the  north,  and  generally  silent. 
The  most  characteristic  birds,  however,  were  the  wood- 
peckers, of  which  there  were  seven  or  eight  species,  the 
commonest  around  our  camp  being  the  handsome  red- 
bellied,  the  brother  of  the  red-head  which  we  saw  in  the 
clearings.  The  most  notable  birds  and  those  which  most 
interested  me  were  the  great  ivory-billed  woodpeckers. 
Of  these  I  saw  three,  all  of  them  in  groves  of  giant 
cypress;  their  brilliant  white  bills  contrasted  finely  with 
the  black  of  their  general  plumage.  They  were  noisy 
but  wary,  and  they  seemed  to  me  to  set  off  the  wildness  of 
the  swamp  as  much  as  any  of  the  beasts  of  the  chase. 
Among  the  birds  of  prey  the  commonest  were  the  barred 
owls,  which  I  have  never  elsewhere  seen  so  plentiful. 
Their  hooting  and  yelling  were  heard  all  around  us 
throughout  the  night,  and  once  one  of  them  hooted  at 
intervals  for  several  minutes  at  midday.  One  of  these 
owls  had  caught  and  was  devouring  a  snake  in  the  late 
afternoon,  while  it  was  still  daylight.  In  the  dark  nights 
and  still  mornings  and  evenings  their  cries  seemed  strange 
and  unearthly,  the  long  hoots  varied  by  screeches,  and 
by  all  kinds  of  uncanny  noises. 

At  our  first  camp  our  tents  were  pitched  by  the  bayou. 
For  four  days -the  weather  was  hot,  with  steaming  rains; 
after  that  it  grew  cool  and  clear.  Huge  biting  flies, 
bigger  than  bees,  attacked  our  horses;  but  the  insect 
plagues,  so  veritable  a  scourge  in  this  country  during  the 
months  of  warm  weather,  had  well-nigh  vanished  in  the 
first  few  weeks  of  the  fall. 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA   CANEBRAKES   365 

The  morning  after  we  reached  camp  we  were  joined 
by  Ben  Lilley,  the  hunter,  a  spare,  full-bearded  man,  with 
wild,  gentle,  blue  eyes  and  a  frame  of  steel  and  whipcord. 
I  never  met  any  other  man  so  indifferent  to  fatigue  and 
hardship.  He  equalled  Cooper's  Deerslayer  in  wood- 
craft, in  hardihood,  in  simplicity — and  also  in  loquacity. 
The  morning  he  joined  us  in  camp,  he  had  come  on  foot 
through  the  thick  woods,  followed  by  his  two  dogs,  and 
had  neither  eaten  nor  drunk  for  twenty- four  hours;  for 
he  did  not  like  to  drink  the  swamp  water.  It  had  rained 
hard  throughout  the  night  and  he  had  no  shelter,  no 
rubber  coat,  nothing  but  the  clothes  he  was  wearing,  and 
the  ground  was  too  wet  for  him  to  lie  on ;  so  he  perched 
in  a  crooked  tree  in  the  beating  rain,  much  as  if  he  had 
been  a  wild  turkey.  But  he  was  not  in  the  least  tired 
when  he  struck  camp ;  and,  though  he  slept  an  hour  after 
breakfast,  it  was  chiefly  because  he  had  nothing  else  to 
do,  inasmuch  as  it  was  Sunday,  on  which  day  he  never 
hunted  nor  labored.  He  could  run  through  the  woods 
like  a  buck,  was  far  more  enduring,  and  quite  as  indif- 
ferent to  weather,  though  he  was  over  fifty  years  old. 
He  had  trapped  and  hunted  throughout  almost  all  the 
half  century  of  his  life,  and  on  trail  of  game  he  was  as 
sure  as  his  own  hounds.  His  observations  on  wild  crea- 
tures were  singularly  close  and  accurate.  He  was  par- 
ticularly fond  of  the  chase  of  the  bear,  which  he  followed 
by  himself,  with  one  or  two  dogs;  often  he  would  be 
on  the  trail  of  his  quarry  for  days  at  a  time,  lying  down 
to  sleep  wherever  night  overtook  him,  and  he  had  killed 
over  a  hundred  and  twenty  bears. 


366  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

Late  in  the  evening  of  the  same  day  we  were  joined 
by  two  gentlemen  to  whom  we  owed  the  success  of  our 
hunt:  Messrs.  Clive  and  Harley  Metcalf,  planters  from 
Mississippi,  men  in  the  prime  of  life,  thorough  woods- 
men and  hunters,  skilled  marksmen,  and  utterly  fearless 
horsemen.  For  a  quarter  of  a  century  they  had  hunted 
bear  and  deer  with  horse  and  hound,  and  were  masters 
of  the  art.  They  brought  with  them  their  pack  of  bear 
hounds,  only  one,  however,  being  a  thoroughly  staunch 
and  seasoned  veteran.  The  pack  was  under  the  imme- 
diate control  of  a  negro  hunter,  Holt  Collier,  in  his  own 
way  as  remarkable  a  character  as  Ben  Lilley.  He  was  a 
man  of  sixty  and  could  neither  read  nor  write,  but  he 
had  all  the  dignity  of  an  African  chief,  and  for  half  a 
century  he  had  been  a  bear  hunter,  having  killed  or  as- 
sisted in  killing  over  three  thousand  bears.  He  had  been 
born  a  slave  on  the  Hinds  plantation,  his  father,  an  old 
man  when  he  was  born,  having  been  the  body  servant  and 
cook  of  "  old  General  Hinds,"  as  he  called  him,  when  the 
latter  fought  under  Jackson  at  New  Orleans.  When  ten 
years  old  Holt  had  been  taken  on  the  horse  behind  his 
young  master,  the  Hinds  of  that  day,  on  a  bear  hunt, 
when  he  killed  his  first  bear.  In  the  Civil  War  he  had 
not  only  followed  his  master  to  battle  as  his  body  servant, 
but  had  acted- under  him  as  sharpshooter  against  the 
Union  soldiers.  After  the  war  he  continued  to  stay  with 
his  master  until  the  latter  died,  and  had  then  been  adopted 
by  the  Metcalfs;  and  he  felt  that  he  had  brought  them 
up,  and  treated  them  with  that  mixture  of  affection  and 
grumbling  respect  which  an  old  nurse  shows  toward  the 


IN    THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES   367 

lad  who  has  ceased  being  a  child.  The  two  Metcalfs 
and  Holt  understood  one  another  thoroughly,  and  under- 
stood their  hounds  and  the  game  their  hounds  followed 
almost  as  thoroughly. 

They  had  killed  many  deer  and  wildcat,  and  now  and 
then  a  panther;  but  their  favorite  game  was  the  black 
bear,  which,  until  within  a  very  few  years,  was  extraordi- 
narily plentiful  in  the  swamps  and  canebrakes  on  both 
sides  of  the  lower  Mississippi,  and  which  is  still  found 
here  and  there,  although  in  greatly  diminished  numbers. 
In  Louisiana  and  Mississippi  the  bears  go  into  their  dens 
toward  the  end  of  January,  usually  in  hollow  trees,  often 
very  high  up  in  living  trees,  but  often  also  in  great  logs 
that  lie  rotting  on  the  ground.  They  come  forth  toward 
the  end  of  April,  the  cubs  having  been  born  in  the  inter- 
val. At  this  time  the  bears  are  nearly  as  fat,  so  my  in- 
formants said,  as  when  they  enter  their  dens  in  January; 
but  they  lose  their  fat  very  rapidly.  On  first  coming  out 
in  the  spring  they  usually  eat  ash  buds  and  the  tender 
young  cane  called  mutton  cane,  and  at  that  season  they 
generally  refuse  to  eat  the  acorns  even  when  they  are 
plentiful.  According  to  my  informants  it  is  at  this  sea- 
son that  they  are  most  apt  to  take  to  killing  stock,  almost 
always  the  hogs  which  run  wild  or  semi-wild  in  the 
woods.  They  are  very  individual  in  their  habits,  how- 
ever; many  of  them  never  touch  stock,  while  others,  usu- 
ally old  he-bears,  may  kill  numbers  of  hogs;  in  one  case 
an  old  he-bear  began  this  hog-killing  just  as  soon  as  he 
left  his  den.  In  the  summer  months  they  find  but  little 
to  eat,  and  it  is  at  this  season  that  they  are  most  industrious 


368  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

in  hunting  for  grubs,  insects,  frogs  and  small  mammals. 
In  some  neighborhoods  they  do  not  eat  fish,  while  in  other 
places,  perhaps  not  far  away,  they  not  only  greedily  eat 
dead  fish,  but  will  themselves  kill  fish  if  they  can  find 
them  in  shallow  pools  left  by  the  receding  waters.  As 
soon  as  the  mast  is  on  the  ground  they  begin  to  feed  upon 
it,  and  when  the  acorns  and  pecans  are  plentiful  they  eat 
nothing  else;  though  at  first  berries  of  all  kinds  and 
grapes  are  eaten  also.  When  in  November  they  have 
begun  only  to  eat  the  acorns  they  put  on  fat  as  no  other 
wild  animal  does,  and  by  the  end  of  December  a  full- 
grown  bear  may  weigh  at  least  twice  as  much  as  it  does 
in  August,  the  difference  being  as  great  as  between  a  very 
fat  and  a  lean  hog.  Old  he-bears  which  in  August  weigh 
three  hundred  pounds  and  upward  will,  toward  the  end 
of  December,  weigh  six  hundred  pounds,  and  even  more 
in  exceptional  cases. 

Bears  vary  greatly  in  their  habits  in  different  local- 
ities, in  addition  to  the  individual  variation  among  those 
of  the  same  neighborhood.  Around  Avery  Island,  John 
Mcllhenny's  plantation,  the  bears  only  appear  from  June 
to  November;  there  they  never  kill  hogs,  but  feed  at  first 
on  corn  and  then  on  sugar  cane,  doing  immense  damage 
in  the  fields,  quite  as  much  as  hogs  would  do.  But  when 
we  were  on  the  Tensas  we  visited  a  family  of  settlers  who 
lived  right  in  the  midst  of  the  forest  ten  miles  from  any 
neighbors;  and  although  bears  were  plentiful  around 
them  they  never  molested  their  corn  fields — in  which  the 
coons,  however,  did  great  damage. 

A  big  bear  is  cunning,  and  is  a  dangerous  fighter  to 


IN   THE   LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES   369 

the  dogs.  It  is  only  in  exceptional  cases,  however,  that 
these  black  bears,  even  when  wounded  and  at  bay,  are 
dangerous  to  men,  in  spite  of  their  formidable  strength. 
Each  of  the  hunters  with  whom  I  was  camped  had  been 
charged  by  one  or  two  among  the  scores  or  hundreds  of 
bears  he  had  slain,  but  no  one  of  them  had  ever  been  in- 
jured, although  they  knew  other  men  who  had  been  in- 
jured. Their  immunity  was  due  to  their  own  skill  and 
coolness;  for  when  the  dogs  were  around  the  bear  the 
hunter  invariably  ran  close  in  so  as  to  kill  the  bear  at  once 
and  save  the  pack.  Each  of  the  Metcalfs  had  on  one 
occasion  killed  a  large  bear  with  a  knife,  when  the  hounds 
had  seized  it  and  the  men  dared  not  fire  for  fear  of  shoot- 
ing one  of  them.  They  had  in  their  younger  days  hunted 
with  a  General  Hamberlin,  a  Mississippi  planter  whom 
they  well  knew,  who  was  then  already  an  old  man.  He 
was  passionately  addicted  to  the  chase  of  the  bear,  not 
only  because  of  the  sport  it  afforded,  but  also  in  a  certain 
way  as  a  matter  of  vengeance;  for  his  father,  also  a  keen 
bear-hunter,  had  been  killed  by  a  bear.  It  was  an  old  he, 
which  he  had  wounded  and  which  had  been  bayed  by  the 
dogs;  it  attacked  him,  throwing  him  down  and  biting 
him  so  severely  that  he  died  a  couple  of  days  later.  This 
was  in  1847.  Mr.  W.  H.  Lambeth  sends  the  following 
account  of  the  fatal  encounter: 

"  I  send  you  an  extract  from  the  Brother  Jonathan, 
published  in  New  York  in  1847: 

"  '  Dr.  Monroe  Hamberlin,  Robert  Wilson,  Joe  Brazeil, 
and  others   left   Satartia,    Miss.,    and  in   going  up   Big  Sun- 


37° 


AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 


flower  River,  met  Mr.  Leiser  and  his  party  of  hunters  return- 
ing to  Vicksburg.  Mr.  Leiser  told  Dr.  Hamberlin  that  he 
saw  the  largest  bear  track  at  the  big  Mound  on  Lake  George 
that  he  ever  saw,  and  was  afraid  to  tackle  him.  Dr.  Ham- 
berlin said,  "  I  never  saw  one  that  I  was  afraid  to  tackle."  Dr. 
Hamberlin  landed  his  skiff  at  the  Mound  and  his  dogs  soon 
bayed  the  bear.  Dr.  Hamberlin  fired  and  the  ball  glanced  on 
the  bear's  head.  The  bear  caught  him  by  the  right  thigh  and 
tore  all  the  flesh  off.  He  drew  his  knife  and  the  bear  crushed 
his  right  arm.  He  cheered  the  dogs  and  they  pulled  the  bear 
off.  The  bear  whipped  the  dogs  and  attacked  him  the  third 
time,  biting  him  in  the  hollow  back  of  his  neck.  Mr.  Wilson 
came  up  and  shot  the  bear  dead  on  Dr.  Hamberlin.  The  party 
returned  to  Satartia,  but  Dr.  Hamberlin  told  them  to  put  the 
bear  in  the  skiff,  that  he  would  not  leave  without  his  antagonist. 
The  bear  weighed  640  pounds.' 

"  Dr.  Hamberlin  lived  three  days.  I  knew  all  the  parties. 
His  son  John  and  myself  hunted  with  them  in  1843  an<^  J844> 
when  we  were  too  small  to  carry  a  gun." 

A  large  bear  is  not  afraid  of  dogs,  and  an  old  he, 
or  a  she  with  cubs,  is  always  on  the  lookout  for  a  chance 
to  catch  and  kill  any  dog  that  comes  near  enough.  While 
lean  and  in  good  running  condition  it  is  not  an  easy  mat- 
ter to  bring  a  bear  to  bay;  but  as  they  grow  fat  they  be- 
come steadily  less  able  to  run,  and  the  young  ones,  and 
even  occasionally  -a  full-grown  she,  will  then  readily  tree. 
If  a  man  is  not  near  by,  a  big  bear  that  has  become  tired 
will  treat  the  pack  with  whimsical  indifference.  The 
Metcalfs  recounted  to  me  how  they  had  once  seen  a  bear, 
which  had  been  chased  quite  a  time,  evidently  make  up 
its  mind  that  it  needed  a  rest  and  could  afford  to  take  it 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA   CANEBRAKES   371 

without  much  regard  for  the  hounds.  The  bear  accord- 
ingly selected  a  small  opening  and  lay  flat  on  its  back  with 
its  nose  and  all  its  four  legs  extended.  The  dogs  sur- 
rounded it  in  frantic  excitement,  barking  and  baying,  and 
gradually  coming  in  a  ring  very  close  up.  The  bear  was 
watching,  however,  and  suddenly  sat  up  with  a  jerk, 
frightening  the  dogs  nearly  into  fits.  Half  of  them  turned 
back  somersaults  in  their  panic,  and  all  promptly  gave 
the  bear  ample  room.  The  bear  having  looked  about,  lay 
flat  on  its  back  again,  and  the  pack  gradually  regaining 
courage  once  more  closed  in.  At  first  the  bear,  which 
was  evidently  reluctant  to  arise,  kept  them  at  a  distance 
by  now  and  then  thrusting  an  unexpected  paw  toward 
them;  and  when  they  became  too  bold  it  sat  up  with  a 
jump  and  once  more  put  them  all  to  flight. 

For  several  days  we  hunted  perseveringly  around  this 
camp  on  the  Tensas  Bayou,  but  without  success.  Deer 
abounded,  but  we  could  find  no  bears ;  and  of  the  deer  we 
killed  only  what  we  actually  needed  for  use  in  camp.  I 
killed  one  myself  by  a  good  shot,  in  which,  however,  I 
fear  that  the  element  of  luck  played  a  considerable  part. 
We  had  started  as  usual  by  sunrise,  to  be  gone  all  day; 
for  we  never  counted  upon  returning  to  camp  before 
sunset.  For  an  hour  or  two  we  threaded  our  way,  first 
along  an  indistinct  trail,  and  then  on  an  old  disused  road, 
the  hardy  woods-horses  keeping  on  a  running  walk  with- 
out much  regard  to  the  difficulties  of  the  ground.  The 
disused  road  lay  right  across  a  great  canebrake,  and  while 
some  of  the  party  went  around  the  cane  with  the  dogs,  the 
rest  of  us  strung  out  along  the  road  so  as  to  get  a  shot 


372  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

at  any  bear  that  might  come  across  it.  I  was  following 
Harley  Metcalf,  with  John  Mcllhenny  and  Dr.  Rixey 
behind  on  the  way  to  their  posts,  when  we  heard  in  the 
far-off  distance  two  of  the  younger  hounds,  evidently  on 
the  trail  of  a  deer.  Almost  immediately  afterward  a 
crash  in  the  bushes  at  our  right  hand  and  behind  us  made 
me  turn  around,  and  I  saw  a  deer  running  across  the  few 
feet  of  open  space;  and  as  I  leaped  from  my  horse  it  dis- 
appeared in  the  cane.  I  am  a  rather  deliberate  shot,  and 
under  any  circumstances  a  rifle  is  not  the  best  weapon 
for  snap  shooting,  while  there  is  no  kind  of  shooting  more 
difficult  than  on  running  game  in  a  canebrake.  Luck 
favored  me  in  this  instance,  however,  for  there  was  a  spot 
a  little  ahead  of  where  the  deer  entered  in  which  the  cane 
was  thinner,  and  I  kept  my  rifle  on  its  indistinct,  shadowy 
outline  until  it  reached  this  spot;  it  then  ran  quartering 
away  from  me,  which  made  my  shot  much  easier,  although 
I  could  only  catch  its  general  outline  through  the  cane. 
But  the  45-70  which  I  was  using  is  a  powerful  gun  and 
shoots  right  through  cane  or  bushes;  and  as  soon  as  I 
pulled  trigger  the  deer,  with  a  bleat,  turned  a  tremen- 
dous somersault  and  was  dead  when  we  reached  it.  I 
was  not  a  little  pleased  that  my  bullet  should  have 
sped  so  true  when  I  was  making  my  first  shot  in  com- 
pany with  my  hard-riding,  straight-shooting  planter 
friends. 

But  no  bears  were  to  be  found.  We  waited  long  hours 
on  likely  stands.  We  rode  around  the  canebrakes 
through  the  swampy  jungle,  or  threaded  our  way  across 
them  on  trails  cut  by  the  heavy  wood-knives  of  my  com- 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES  373 

panions;  but  we  found  nothing.  Until  the  trails  were 
cut  the  canebrakes  were  impenetrable  to  a  horse  and  were 
difficult  enough  to  a  man  on  foot.  On  going  through 
them  it  seemed  as  if  we  must  be  in  the  tropics ;  the  silence, 
the  stillness,  the  heat,  and  the  obscurity,  all  combining  to 
give  a  certain  eeriness  to  the  task,  as  we  chopped  our 
winding  way  slowly  through  the  dense  mass  of  close- 
growing,  feather-fronded  stalks.  Each  of  the  hunters 
prided  himself  on  his  skill  with  the  horn,  which  was  an 
essential  adjunct  of  the  hunt,  used  both  to  summon  and 
control  the  hounds,  and  for  signalling  among  the  hunters 
themselves.  The  tones  of  many  of  the  horns  were  full 
and  musical;  and  it  was  pleasant  to  hear  them  as  they 
wailed  to  one  another,  backward  and  forward,  across  the 
great  stretches  of  lonely  swamp  and  forest. 

A  few  days  convinced  us  that  it  was  a  waste  of  time 
to  stay  longer  where  we  were.  Accordingly,  early  one 
morning  we  hunters  started  for  a  new  camp  fifteen  or 
twenty  miles  to  the  southward,  on  Bear  Lake.  We  took 
the  hounds  with  us,  and  each  man  carried  what  he  chose 
or  could  in  his  saddle-pockets,  while  his  slicker  was  on 
his  horse's  back  behind  him.  Otherwise  we  took  abso- 
lutely nothing  in  the  way  of  supplies,  and  the  negroes 
with  the  tents  and  camp  equipage  were  three  days  before 
they  overtook  us.  On  our  way  down  we  were  joined  by 
Major  Amacker  and  Dr.  Miller,  with  a  small  pack  of  cat 
hounds.  These  were  good  deer  dogs,  and  they  ran  down 
and  killed  on  the  ground  a  good-sized  bobcat — a  wildcat, 
as  it  is  called  in  the  South.  It  was  a  male  and  weighed 
twenty-three  and  a  half  pounds.  It  had  just  killed  and 


374  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

eaten  a  large  rabbit.  The  stomachs  of  the  deer  we  killed, 
by  the  way,  contained  acorns  and  leaves. 

Our  new  camp  was  beautifully  situated  on  the  bold, 
steep  bank  of  Bear  Lake — a  tranquil  stretch  of  water, 
part  of  an  old  river  bed,  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  broad 
with  a  winding  length  of  several  miles.  Giant  cypress 
grew  at  the  edge  of  the  water;  the  singular  cypress  knees 
rising  in  every  direction  round  about,  while  at  the  bot- 
toms of  the  trunks  themselves  were  often  cavernous  hol- 
lows opening  beneath  the  surface  of  water,  some  of  them 
serving  as  dens  for  alligators.  There  was  a  waxing  moon, 
so  that  the  nights  were  as  beautiful  as  the  days. 

From  our  new  camp  we  hunted  as  steadily  as  from  the 
old.  We  saw  bear  sign,  but  not  much  of  it,  and  only  one 
or  two  fresh  tracks.  One  day  the  hounds  jumped  a  bear, 
probably  a  yearling  from  the  way  it  ran;  for  at  this  sea- 
son a  yearling  or  a  two-year-old  will  run  almost  like  a 
deer,  keeping  to  the  thick  cane  as  long  as  it  can  and  then 
bolting  across  through  the  bushes  of  the  ordinary  swamp 
land  until  it  can  reach  another  canebrake.  After  a  three 
hours'  run  this  particular  animal  managed  to  get  clear 
away  without  one  of  the  hunters  ever  seeing  it,  and  it  ran 
until  all  the  dogs  were  tired  out.  A  day  or  two  afterward 
one  of  the  other  members  of  the  party  shot  a  small  year- 
ling— that  is,  a  bear  which  would  have  been  two  years  old 
in  the  following  February.  It  was  very  lean,  weighing 
but  fifty-five  pounds.  The  finely  chewed  acorns  in  its 
stomach  showed  that  it  was  already  beginning  to  find 
mast. 

We  had  seen  the  tracks  of  an  old  she  in  the  neigh- 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES   375 

borhood,  and  the  next  morning  we  started  to  hunt  her  out. 
I  went  with  Clive  Metcalf.  We  had  been  joined  over- 
night by  Mr.  Ichabod  Osborn  and  his  son  Tom,  two 
Louisiana  planters,  with  six  or  eight  hounds — or  rather 
bear  dogs,  for  in  these  packs  most  of  the  animals  are  of 
mixed  blood,  and,  as  with  all  packs  that  are  used  in  the 
genuine  hunting  of  the  wilderness,  pedigree  counts  for 
nothing  as  compared  with  steadiness,  courage  and  intelli- 
gence. There  were  only  two  of  the  new  dogs  that  were 
really  staunch  bear  dogs.  The  father  of  Ichabod  Osborn 
had  taken  up  the  plantation  upon  which  they  were  living 
in  1811,  only  a  few  years  after  Louisiana  became  part  of 
the  United  States,  and  young  Osborn  was  now  the  third 
in  line  from  father  to  son  who  had  steadily  hunted  bears 
in  this  immediate  neighborhood. 

On  reaching  the  cypress  slough  near  which  the  tracks 
of  the  old  she  had  been  seen  the  day  before,  Clive  Met- 
calf and  I  separated  from  the  others  and  rode  off  at  a 
lively  pace  between  two  of  the  canebrakes.  After  an  hour 
or  two's  wait  we  heard,  very  far  off,  the  notes  of  one 
of  the  loudest-mouthed  hounds,  and  instantly  rode 
toward  it,  until  we  could  make  out  the  babel  of  the  pack. 
Some  hard  galloping  brought  us  opposite  the  point 
toward  which  they  were  heading, — for  experienced  hunt- 
ers can  often  tell  the  probable  line  of  a  bear's  flight,  and 
the  spots  at  which  it  will  break  cover.  But  on  this  occa- 
sion the  bear  shied  off  from  leaving  the  thick  cane  and 
doubled  back;  and  soon  the  hounds  were  once  more  out 
of  hearing,  while  we  galloped  desperately  around  the 
edge  of  the  cane.  The  tough  woods-horses  kept  their 


376  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

feet  like  cats  as  they  leaped  logs,  plunged  through  bushes, 
and  dodged  in  and  out  among  the  tree  trunks ;  and  we  had 
all  we  could  do  to  prevent  the  vines  from  lifting  us  out 
of  the  saddle,  while  the  thorns  tore  our  hands  and  faces. 
Hither  and  thither  we  went,  now  at  a  trot,  now  at  a  run, 
now  stopping  to  listen  for  the  pack.  Occasionally  we 
could  hear  the  hounds,  and  then  off  we  would  go  racing 
through  the  forest  toward  the  point  toward  which  we 
thought  they  were  heading.  Finally,  after  a  couple  of 
hours  of  this,  we  came  up  on  one  side  of  a  canebrake  on 
the  other  side  of  which  we  could  hear,  not  only  the  pack, 
but  the  yelling  and  cheering  of  Harley  Metcalf  and  Tom 
Osborn  and  one  or  two  of  the  negro  hunters,  all  of  whom 
were  trying  to  keep  the  dogs  up  to  their  work  in  the  thick 
cane.  Again  we  rode  ahead,  and  now  in  a  few  minutes 
were  rewarded  by  hearing  the  leading  dogs  come  to  bay 
in  the  thickest  of  the  cover.  Having  galloped  as  near  to 
the  spot  as  we  could  we  threw  ourselves  off  the  horses  and 
plunged  into  the  cane,  trying  to  cause  as  little  disturbance 
as  possible,  but  of  course  utterly  unable  to  avoid  making 
some  noise.  Before  we  were  within  gunshot,  however, 
we  could  tell  by  the  sounds  that  the  bear  had  once  again 
started,  making  what  is  called  a  "  walking  bay."  Clive 
Metcalf,  a  finished  bear-hunter,  was  speedily  able  to  de- 
termine what  the  bear's  probable  course  would  be,  and 
we  stole  through  the  cane  until  we  came  to  a  spot  near 
which  he  thought  the  quarry  would  pass.  Then  we 
crouched  down,  I  with  my  rifle  at  the  ready.  Nor  did 
we  have  long  to  wait.  Peering  through  the  thick-grow- 
ing stalks  I  suddenly  made  out  the  dim  outline  of  the 


LISTENING    FOR  THE   PACK 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1907,  by  Alexander  Lambert,  M.D. 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES  377 

bear  coming  straight  toward  us ;  and  noiselessly  I  cocked 
and  half-raised  my  rifle,  waiting  for  a  clearer  chance.  In 
a  few  seconds  it  came;  the  bear  turned  almost  broad- 
side to  me,  and  walked  forward  very  stiff-legged,  al- 
most as  if  on  tiptoe,  now  and  then  looking  back  at 
the  nearest  dogs.  These  were  two  in  number — Rowdy, 
a  very  deep-voiced  hound,  in  the  lead,  and  Queen,  a 
shrill-tongued  brindled  bitch,  a  little  behind.  Once  or 
twice  the  bear  paused  as  she  looked  back  at  them,  evi- 
dently hoping  that  they  would  come  so  near  that  by  a 
sudden  race  she  could  catch  one  of  them.  But  they  were 
too  wary. 

All  of  this  took  but  a  few  moments,  and  as  I  saw  the 
bear  quite  distinctly  some  twenty  yards  off,  I  fired  for 
behind  the  shoulder.  Although  I  could  see  her  outline, 
yet  the  cane  was  so  thick  that  my  sight  was  on  it  and  not 
on  the  bear  itself.  But  I  knew  my  bullet  would  go  true; 
and  sure  enough,  at  the  crack  of  the  rifle  the  bear  stum- 
bled and  fell  forward,  the  bullet  having  passed  through 
both  lungs  and  out  at  the  opposite  side.  Immediately  the 
dogs  came  running  forward  at  full  speed,  and  we  raced 
forward  likewise  lest  the  pack  should  receive  damage. 
The  bear  had  but  a  minute  or  two  to  live,  yet  even  in 
that  time  more  than  one  valuable  hound  might  lose  its 
life;  when  within  half  a  dozen  steps  of  the  black,  an- 
gered beast,  I  fired  again,  breaking  the  spine  at  the  root 
of  the  neck;  and  down  went  the  bear  stark  dead,  slain 
in  the  canebrake  in  true  hunter  fashion.  One  by  one  the 
hounds  struggled  up  and  fell  on  their  dead  quarry,  the 
noise  of  the  worry  filling  the  air.  Then  we  dragged 


378  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

the  bear  out  to  the  edge  of  the  cane,  and  my  companion 
wound  his  horn  to  summon  the  other  hunters. 

This  was  a  big  she-bear,  very  lean,  and  weighing  two 
hundred  and  two  pounds.  In  her  stomach  were  pal- 
metto berries,  beetles  and  a  little  mutton  cane,  but  chiefly 
acorns  chewed  up  in  a  fine  brown  mass. 

John  Mcllhenny  had  killed  a  she-bear  about  the  size 
of  this  on  his  plantation  at  Avery's  Island  the  previous 
June.  Several  bears  had  been  raiding  his  corn  fields  and 
one  evening  he  determined  to  try  to  waylay  them.  After 
dinner  he  left  the  ladies  of  his  party  on  the  gallery  of  his 
house  while  he  rode  down  in  a  hollow  and  concealed  him- 
self on  the  lower  side  of  the  corn  field.  Before  he  had 
waited  ten  minutes  a  she-bear  and  her  cub  came  into  the 
field.  Then  she  rose  on  her  hind  legs,  tearing  down  an 
armful  of  ears  of  corn  which  she  seemingly  gave  to  the 
cub,  and  then  rose  for  another  armful.  Mcllhenny  shot 
her;  tried  in  vain  to  catch  the  cub;  and  rejoined  the  party 
on  the  veranda,  having  been  absent  but  one  hour. 

After  the  death  of  my  bear  I  had  only  a  couple  of 
days  left.  We  spent  them  a  long  distance  from  camp, 
having  to  cross  two  bayous  before  we  got  to  the  hunting 
grounds.  I  missed  a  shot  at  a  deer,  seeing  little  more  than 
the  flicker  of  its  white  tail  through  the  dense  bushes; 
and  the  pack  caught  and  killed  a  very  lean  two-year-old 
bear  weighing  eighty  pounds.  Near  a  beautiful  pond 
called  Panther  Lake  we  found  a  deer-lick,  the  ground  not 
merely  bare  but  furrowed  into  hollows  by  the  tongues  of 
the  countless  generations  of  deer  that  had  frequented 
the  place.  We  also  passed  a  huge  mound,  the  only  hillock 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA    CAJXTEBRAKES  379 

in  the  entire  district;  it  was  the  work  of  man,  for  it  had 
been  built  in  the  unknown  past  by  those  unknown  peo- 
ple whom  we  call  moundbuilders.  On  the  trip,  all  told, 
we  killed  and  brought  into  camp  three  bears,  six  deer,  a 
wildcat,  a  turkey,  a  possum,  and  a  dozen  squirrels;  and 
we  ate  everything  except  the  wildcat. 

In  the  evenings  we  sat  around  the  blazing  campfires, 
and,  as  always  on  such  occasions,  each  hunter  told  tales 
of  his  adventures  and  of  the  strange  feats  and  habits  of 
the  beasts  of  the  wilderness.  There  had  been  beaver  all 
through  this  delta  in  the  old  days,  and  a  very  few  are  still 
left  in  out-of-the-way  places.  One  Sunday  morning  we 
saw  two  wolves,  I  think  young  of  the  year,  appear  for  a 
moment  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  bayou,  but  they  van- 
ished before  we  could  shoot.  All  of  our  party  had  had  a 
good  deal  of  experience  with  wolves.  The  Metcalfs  had 
had  many  sheep  killed  by  them,  the  method  of  killing 
being  invariably  by  a  single  bite  which  tore  open  the 
throat  while  the  wolf  ran  beside  his  victim.  The  wolves 
also  killed  young  hogs,  but  were  very  cautious  about  med- 
dling with  an  old  sow;  while  one  of  the  big  half-wild 
boars  that  ranged  free  through  the  woods  had  no  fear  of 
any  number  of  wolves.  Their  endurance  and  the  ex- 
tremely difficult  nature  of  the  country  made  it  difficult  to 
hunt  them,  and  the  hunters  all  bore  them  a  grudge,  be- 
cause if  a  hound  got  lost  in  a  region  where  wolves  were 
at  all  plentiful  they  were  almost  sure  to  find  and  kill  him 
before  he  got  home.  They  were  fond  of  preying  on  dogs, 
and  at  times  would  boldly  kill  the  hounds  right  ahead  of 
the  hunters.  In  one  instance,  while  the  dogs  were  fol- 


380  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

lowing  a  bear  and  were  but  a  couple  of  hundred  yards 
in  front  of  the  horsemen,  a  small  party  of  wolves  got  in 
on  them  and  killed  two.  One  of  the  Osborns,  having  a 
valuable  hound  which  was  addicted  to  wandering  in  the 
woods,  saved  him  from  the  wolves  by  putting  a  bell 
on  him.  The  wolves  evidently  suspected  a  trap  and 
would  never  go  near  the  dog.  On  one  occasion  another 
of  his  hounds  got  loose  with  a  chain  on,  and  they  found 
him  a  day  or  two  afterward  unharmed,  his  chain  having 
become  entangled  in  the  branches  of  a  bush.  One  or 
two  wolves  had  evidently  walked  around  and  around  the 
imprisoned  dog,  but  the  chain  had  awakened  their  sus- 
picions and  they  had  not  pounced  on  him.  They  had 
killed  a  yearling  heifer  a  short  time  before,  on  Osborn's 
plantation,  biting  her  in  the  hams.  It  has  been  my  ex- 
perience that  fox  hounds  as  a  rule  are  afraid  of  attack- 
ing a  wolf;  but  all  of  my  friends  assured  me  that  their 
dogs,  if  a  sufficient  number  of  them  were  together,  would 
tackle  a  wolf  without  hesitation ;  the  packs,  however,  were 
always  composed,  to  the  extent  of  at  least  half,  of  dogs 
which,  though  part  hound,  were  part  shepherd  or  bull 
or  some  other  breed.  Dr.  Miller  had  hunted  in  Arkan- 
sas with  a  pack  specially  trained  after  the  wolf.  There 
were  twenty-eight  of  them  all  told,  and  on  this  hunt  they 
ran  down  and  killed  unassisted  four  full-grown  wolves, 
although  some  of  the  hounds  were  badly  cut.  None  of 
my  companions  had  ever  known  of  wolves  actually 
molesting  men,  but  Mr.  Ichabod  Osborn's  son-in-law 
had  a  queer  adventure  with  wolves  while  riding  alone 
through  the  woods  one  late  afternoon.  His  horse  acting 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES   381 

nervously,  he  looked  about  and  saw  that  five  wolves  were 
coming  toward  him.  One  was  a  bitch,  the  other  four 
were  males.  They  seemed  to  pay  little  heed  to  him,  and 
he  shot  one  of  the  males,  which  crawled  off.  The  next 
minute  the  bitch  ran  straight  toward  him  and  was  almost 
at  his  stirrup  when  he  killed  her.  The  other  three  wolves, 
instead  of  running  away,  jumped  to  and  fro  growling, 
with  their  hair  bristling,  and  he  killed  two  of  them; 
whereupon  the  survivor  at  last  made  off.  He  brought 
the  scalps  of  the  three  dead  wolves  home  with  him. 

Near  our  first  camp  was  the  carcass  of  a  deer,  a 
yearling  buck,  which  had  been  killed  by  a  cougar.  When 
first  found,  the  wounds  on  the  carcass  showed  that  the 
deer  had  been  killed  by  a  bite  in  the  neck  at  the  back 
of  the  head;  but  there  were  scratches  on  the  rump  as  if 
the  panther  had  landed  on  its  back.  One  of  the  negro 
hunters,  Brutus  Jackson,  evidently  a  trustworthy  man, 
told  me  that  he  had  twice  seen  cougars,  each  time  under 
unexpected  conditions.  Once  he  saw  a  bobcat  race  up  a 
tree,  and  riding  toward  it  saw  a  panther  reared  up 
against  the  trunk.  The  panther  looked  around  at  him 
quite  calmly,  and  then  retired  in  leisurely  fashion.  Jack- 
son went  off  to  get  some  hounds,  and  when  he  returned 
two  hours  afterward  the  bobcat  was  still  up  the  tree, 
evidently  so  badly  scared  that  he  did  not  wish  to  come 
down.  The  hounds  were  unable  to  follow  the  cougar. 
On  another  occasion  he  heard  a  tremendous  scuffle  and 
immediately  afterward  saw  a  big  doe  racing  along  with 
a  small  cougar  literally  riding  it.  The  cougar  was  bit- 
ing the  neck,  but  low  down  near  the  shoulders;  he  was 


382  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

hanging  on  with  his  front  paws,  but  was  tearing  away 
with  his  hind  claws  so  that  the  deer's  hair  appeared  to 
fill  the  air.  As  soon  as  Jackson  appeared  the  panther 
left  the  deer.  He  shot  it,  and  the  doe  galloped  off, 
apparently  without  serious  injury. 

I  wish  those  who  see  cougars  kill  game,  or  who  come 
on  game  that  they  have  killed,  would  study  and  record 
the  exact  method  employed  in  killing.  Mr.  Hornaday 
sent  me  a  photograph  of  a  cougar  killing  a  goat,  which 
he  had  seized  high  up  on  the  back  of  the  neck  in  his 
jaws,  not  using  his  claws  at  all.  I  once  found  where  one 
had  killed  a  big  buck  by  seizing  him  by  the  throat;  the 
claws  also  having  evidently  been  used  to  hold  the  buck 
in  the  struggle.  Another  time  I  found  a  colt  which  had 
been  killed  by  a  bite  in  the  neck;  and  yet  another  time  a 
young  doe  which  had  been  killed  by  a  bite  in  the  head. 
In  most  cases  where  I  came  across  the  carcasses  of  deer 
which  had  been  killed  by  cougars  they  had  been  partially 
eaten,  and  it  was  not  possible  to  find  out  exactly  how 
they  had  been  slain.  In  one  instance  at  least  the  neck 
had  been  broken,  evidently  in  the  struggle;  but  I  could 
not  tell  whether  this  had  been  done  designedly,  by  the 
use  of  the  forepaws.  Twice  hunters  I  have  known  saw 
cougars  seize  mountain  sheep,  in  each  case  by  the  throat. 
The  information  furnished  me  inclines  me  to  believe  that 
most  game  is  killed  by  cougars  in  this  fashion.  Most  of 
the  carcasses  of  elk  which  had  been  killed  by  cougars 
that  I  have  examined  showed  fang  marks  round  the 
throat  and  neck;  but  one  certainly  did  not,  though  it  is 
possible  in  this  case  that  the  elk  died  in  some  other  way, 


IN   THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES   383 

and  that  the  cougar  had  merely  been  feeding  on  its  dead 
body.  But  I  have  read  of  cases  in  which  elk  and  large 
deer  were  slain  where  the  carcasses  were  said  to  have 
shown  wounds  only  on  the  flanks,  and  where  the  writers 
believed — with  how  much  justification  I  cannot  say — 
that  the  wounds  had  been  inflicted  by  the  claws.  I  should 
be  surprised  to  find  that  such  was  the  ordinary  method 
with  cougars  of  killing  game  of  any  kind ;  but  it  is  per- 
haps unsafe  to  deny  the  possibility  of  such  an  occurrence 
without  more  information  than  is  at  present  available; 
especially  in  view  of  the  experience  of  Brutus  Jackson, 
which  I  give  above.  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Hornaday  a  New 
Mexican  hunter,  Mr.  J.  W.  Carter,  of  Truchas,  states 
that  cougars  rip  with  their  claws  in  killing  game,  and 
that,  whether  the  quarry  is  a  horse,  deer,  or  calf,  the 
cougar  begins  to  eat  at  the  neck.  When  at  bay  a  cougar 
kills  dogs  by  biting  them,  usually  in  the  head ;  the  claws 
are  used  merely  to  scratch  or  rip,  or  to  drag  the  dog 
within  reach  of  the  jaws,  and  to  hold  it  for  the  fatal  bite. 

Miss  Velvin's  studies  of  dangerous  wild  beasts  in  cap- 
tivity show  that  the  cougar  is  ordinarily  more  playful 
and  less  wantonly  ferocious  than  the  big  spotted  cats; 
but  that  there  is  a  wide  individual  variation  among  cou- 
gars, a  few  being  treacherous,  bad-tempered  and  danger- 
ous. Mr.  Bostock,  the  animal  trainer,  states  that  the 
cougar  is  as  a  rule  rather  stupid  and  far  less  courageous 
or  dangerous  than  the  other  big  cats,  the  proportion  of 
vicious  individuals  being  very  small.  He  regards  bears 
as  being  very  dangerous. 

Mr.   Charles  Sheldon  informs  me  that  while  on  a 


384  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

ranch  near  Chihuahua  he  at  different  times  kept  loose, 
as  pets,  a  female  cougar,  three  wolves,  and  several  coyotes, 
all  taken  when  very  young.  All  were  exceedingly  tame 
and  even  affectionate,  save  at  the  moment  of  eating. 

Mr.  W.  H.  Wright,  of  Spokane,  Wash.,  is  a  hunter 
of  wide  experience,  and  has  probably  made  as  close  a  life 
study  of  the  bear — particularly  the  grizzly — as  anyone 
now  alive.  In  speaking  to  me,  he  dwells  on  its  wide 
variation  in  habits,  not  only  as  among  individuals,  but  as 
between  all  the  individuals  of  one  locality  when  com- 
pared with  those  of  another.  Thus,  in  the  Big  Horn  or 
the  Teton  Mountains  if  an  animal  is  killed,  he  has  in  his 
experience  found  that  any  grizzly  within  range  is  almost 
sure  to  come  to  the  carcass  (and  this  has  been  my  expe- 
rience in  the  same  region) .  In  the  Bitter  Roots,  where 
the  bears  live  largely  on  fish,  berries  and  roots,  he  found 
the  chances  just  about  even  whether  the  bears  would  or 
would  not  come;  whereas  in  the  Selkirks,  he  found  that 
the  bears  would  very  rarely  pay  any  attention  to  a  car- 
cass, this  being  a  place  where  game  is  comparatively 
scarce  and  where  there  are  no  salmon,  so  that  the  bears 
live  exclusively  as  vegetarians,  save  for  eating  small  mam- 
mals or  insects.  In  the  Bitter  Roots  Mountains  the  bears 
used  to  live  chiefly  on  fish  in  the  spring  and  early  in  the 
fall;  in  the  summer  they  fed  to  a  large  extent  on  the 
shooting  star,  which  grows  on  all  the  marshes  and  is  one 
of  the  familiar  plants  of  the  region,  but  did  not  touch 
either  the  dog-tooth  violet  or  the  spring  beauty,  both  of 
which  have  little  tubers  on  the  roots.  But  in  the  Koote- 
nay  country  he  found  that  the  bears  dug  up  acres  and 


IN   THE   LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES  385 

acres  of  these  very  dog-tooth  violets  and  spring  beauties 
for  the  sake  of  the  bulbs  on  their  roots;  and  that  they 
rarely  or  never  touched  the  shooting  stars.  All  this  illus- 
trates the  extreme  care  which  should  be  taken  in  making 
observations  and  in  dogmatizing  from  insufficient  data; 
and  also  the  absolute  necessity,  if  a  full  and  accurate 
natural  history  is  to  be  written,  of  drawing  upon  the 
experience  of  very  many  different  observers — provided, 
of  course,  that  they  are  trustworthy  observers. 

For  every  one  of  our  large  beasts  there  should  be  at 
least  one  such  work  as  Lewis  Morgan's  book  on  the 
beaver.  The  observations  of  many  different  men,  all 
accurate  observers  of  wide  experience,  will  be  needed  to 
make  any  such  book  complete.  Most  hunters  can  now 
and  then  supply  some  interesting  experiences.  Thus  Gif- 
ford  Pinchot  and  Harry  Stimson,  while  in  the  Montana 
Rockies  last  fall  saw  a  she  white  goat  beat  off  a  war  eagle 
which  had  attacked  her  yearling  young.  The  eagle 
swooped  on  the  yearling  in  most  determined  fashion ;  but 
the  old  she,  rising  on  her  hind  legs,  caught  the  great  bird 
fairly  on  her  horns;  and  the  eagle  was  too  roughly  han- 
dled to  repeat  the  onslaught.  At  nearly  the  same  time, 
in  British  Columbia,  Senator  Penrose  and  his  brother 
were  hunting  bears.  The  brother  killed  a  yearling 
grizzly.  While  standing  over  the  body,  the  old  she 
appeared  and  charged  him.  She  took  two  bullets  with- 
out flinching,  knocked  him  down,  bit  him  severely,  and 
would  undoubtedly  have  killed  him  had  she  not  in  the 
nick  of  time  succumbed  to  her  own  mortal  wounds. 

Recently  there  has  appeared  a  capital  series  of  obser- 


386  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

vations  on  wolves  by  a  trained  field  naturalist,  Mr.  Ver- 
non  Bailey.  These  first-hand  studies  of  wolves  in  their 
natural  haunts  show,  among  other  things,  that,  unlike  the 
male  cougar,  the  male  wolf  remains  with  the  female 
while  she  is  rearing  her  young  litter  and,  at  least  some- 
times, forages  for  her  and  them.  According  to  Mr. 
Bailey's  observations  the  female  dens  remote  from  all 
other  females,  having  a  large  number  of  pups  in  a  litter; 
but  the  following  interesting  letter  shows  that  in  excep- 
tional cases  two  females  may  den  together  or  near  by 
one  another.  It  is  written  to  Mr.  Phillips,  the  joint 
author,  with  W.  T.  Hornaday,  of  the  admirable  "  Camp- 
Fires  in  the  Canadian  Rockies,"  a  book  as  interesting  and 
valuable  to  the  naturalist  as  to  the  hunter.  The  letter 
runs  as  follows: 

"MEYERS  FALLS,  WASH.,  Dec.  23,  1906. 
"  Mr.  John  M.  Phillips,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 

"  FRIEND  JACK:  Your  favor  of  the  i8th  inst.  to  hand,  and 
was  very  much  pleased  to  hear  you  had  called  on  the  President 
and  to  know  that  you  take  so  much  interest  in  the  protection 
of  Pennsylvania  game.  It  is  a  step  in  the  right  direction.  In 
regard  to  wolves  I  have  hunted  them  a  great  deal  when  they 
had  pups  and  do  not  think  I  would  exaggerate  any  to  say  that 
I  had  found  one  hundred  dens  and  had  destroyed  the  young. 
Often  would  be  able  to  kill  the  mother.  What  you  read  in  the 
East  about  the  dog  wolf  helping  to  raise  the  young  is  true. 
They  stay  together  until  the  young  is  large  enough  to  go  with 
them  and  they  all  kill  their  food  together  because  they  can 
handle  a  large  brute  easier.  I  found  once,  in  Wyoming,  seven- 
teen wolf  pups  in  one  den,  eight  black  ones  and  nine  greys. 
One  of  the  females  was  also  black  and  one  grey,  and  both  dogs 


IN    THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES  387 

were  grey.  One  of  the  dogs  was  the  largest  I  ever  seen,  and 
had  the  biggest  foot.  He  made  a  track  a  third  larger  than 
any  I  ever  saw.  The  old  ones  had  evidently  just  butchered  and 
was  feeding  the  little  ones  when  I  came  in  sight  about  400 
yards  away.  I  believe  a  wolf  has  got  the  quickest  eye  of  any 
animal  living,  and  just  as  my  head  came  up  over  the  hill  the 
old  ones  all  looked  my  way  apparently  at  the  same  time.  It 
was  too  far  to  shoot  so  I  thought  I  would  pretend  I  did  not 
see  them  and  just  simply  ride  by.  After  riding  some  distance 
three  of  the  old  ones  began  to  move  away  and  to  my  surprise 
the  big  fellow  came  over  to  head  me  off.  He  was  just  on  top 
of  a  bench  about  100  feet  high,  and  I  knew  it  would  not  do 
to  get  down  to  shoot  as  one  jump  would  take  him  out  of  sight 
so  I  cracked  my  heels  and  let  my  pony  have  them  in  the  abdo- 
men and  ran  for  the  top  of  the  hill,  but  was  running  against 
the  wind  and  when  I  reached  the  top  my  eyes  was  watering 
so  I  could  not  kill  him,  but  give  him  a  close  call  as  I  got  a 
lock  of  his  hair.  I  found  another  den  the  same  spring  (in 
1899)  and  I  got  eight  pups  and  there  was  five  old  ones.  They 
had  to  go  some  distance  to  find  horses  and  cattle  and  there  was 
a  plain  trail  that  I  could  follow  at  least  five  miles  without  snow. 
Colts  seem  to  be  their  favorite  dish  when  they  can  get  them.1 

1  My  own  experience  has  been  that  wolves  are  more  apt  to  kill  cattle  than 
horses,  whereas  with  cougars  the  reverse  is  true.  It  is  another  instance  ol 
variability — doubtless  both  in  the  observed  and  the  observers.  Wolves  may 
seize  an  animal  anywhere  in  a  scuffle,  and  a  pack  will  literally  tear  a  small  deer  to 
pieces;  but  when  one  or  two  wolves  attack  a  big  animal,  like  a  bull  caribou,  elk  or 
moose,  or  a  horse  or  a  steer,  the  killing  or  crippling  wounds  are  inflicted  in  the 
flanks,  hams  or  throat.  Very  rarely  an  animal  is  seized  by  the  head.  To  any 
real  naturalist  or  hunter,  or  indeed  to  any  competent  observer,  it  is  unnecessary 
to  say  that  no  wolf,  and  no  other  wild  beast,  ever  bites,  or  can  by  any  possibility 
bite,  one  of  these  large  animals,  like  a  horse,  moose,  or  caribou,  in  the  heart; 
yet  an  occasional  "  nature  fakir,"  more  than  usually  reckless  in  his  untruthfulness, 
will  assert  that  such  incidents  do  happen;  and,  what  is  even  more  remarkable, 
uninformed  people  of  more  than  average  credulity  appear  to  believe  the  assertion. 


388  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

Wolves  mate  in  January  and  have  their  pups  in  March,  but 
found  one  den  once  in  February.  Have  known  a  few  to  have 
their  young  as  late  as  April  ist.  The  pups  grow  faster  than 
our  domestic  animals  and  usually  leave  the  dens  in  May.  I 
do  not  think  the  mother  enters  the  den  (after  the  pups  get 
large  enough  to  come  out)  in  order  to  suckle  them,  as  you 
can  call  them  out  by  hiding  and  making  a  whining  noise.  For 
example,  I  set  a  No.  4  beaver  trap  in  a  hole  where  there  was 
a  lot  of  large  pups  and  hid  a  little  way  off  and  made  a  noise 
like  the  female  when  calling  and  apparently  they  all  started 
out  at  the  same  time  and  I  caught  two  at  once  in  the  same  trap 
and  of  course  each  one  thought  the  other  was  biting  his  leg 
and  I  saw  the  most  vicious  scrap  I  ever  seen  out  of  animals 
of  their  size.  They  just  held  on  to  one  another  like  bull  dogs 
and  apparently  did  not  know  I  was  around. 

"  Wolves  go  a  long  way  sometimes  for  their  food.  I  have 
tracked  them  twenty-five  miles  from  where  they  made  a  killing 
before  finding  their  den.  The  old  dog  will  sometimes  go  off 
alone  but  does  not  often  kill  when  by  himself.  Would  just 
as  soon  have  a  male  track  as  a  female  to  follow  for  if  you  will 
stay  with  it  it  is  dead  sure  to  lead  to  a  den  and  it  is  easy  to 
distinguish  the  difference  between  the  two  tracks  if  you  are  on 
to  your  job. 

;<  Wishing  you  a  Merry  Xmas  and  a  Happy  New  Year, 
I  am, 

i  Your  same  old  friend, 

"  R.  M.  NORBOE." 

Mr.  Bailey  is  one  of  a  number  of  faunal  naturalists, 
who,  together  with  certain  big  game  hunters  who  care 
more  for  natural  history  than  for  mere  slaughter,  are 
doing  invaluable  work  in  preserving  the  records  of  wil- 
derness life.  If  Mr.  George  Shiras  will  put  in  book 


IN    THE    LOUISIANA    CANEBRAKES  389 

form  his  noteworthy  collection  of  photographs  of  game, 
and  of  other  wild  creatures,  and  his  numerous  field  notes 
thereon,  he  will  render  a  real  and  great  service  to  all 
lovers  of  nature. 

The  most  exciting  and  interesting  hunting  book  that 
has  recently  appeared  deals  with  African  big  game. 
Many  thrilling  adventures  with  lions  have  been  recorded 
since  the  days  when  the  Assyrian  kings  engraved  on  stone 
their  exploits  in  the  chase;  but  the  best  lion  stories  that 
have  ever  been  written  are  those  in  Colonel  Patterson's 
"  Maneaters  of  Tsavo." 

It  is  now  (January,  1908)  nearly  five  years  since  my 
last  trip  to  the  Yellowstone  Park.  General  Samuel 
Young,  who  is  now  in  charge  of  the  park,  informs  me 
that  on  the  whole  the  game  and  the  wild  creatures  gen- 
erally in  the  park  have  increased  during  this  period.  The 
antelope  he  reports  as  being  certainly  three  times  as 
numerous  as  they  were  ten  years  ago,  and  nearly  twice 
as  numerous  as  when  I  was  out  there.  In  the  town  of 
Gardiner  they  graze  freely  in  the  streets;  not  only  the 
inhabitants  but  even  the  dogs  recognizing  them  as  friends. 
Their  chief  foes  are  the  coyotes.  Last  October  four  full- 
grown  antelope  were  killed  by  coyotes  on  the  Gardiner 
and  Yellowstone  flats,  and  many  fawns  were  destroyed  by 
them  during  the  season.  Practically  all  of  the  antelope 
in  the  park  herd  on  the  Gardiner  flat  and  round  about 
during  the  winter,  and  during  the  present  winter  there 
is  a  good  supply  of  hay  on  this  flat,  which  is  being  used 
to  feed  the  antelope,  mountain  sheep,  deer  and  elk.  The 
sheep  are  increasing  in  numbers.  Probably  about  two 


390  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

hundred  of  them  now  exist  in  the  park.  There  are  prob- 
ably one  hundred  whitetail  and  one  thousand  blacktail 
deer,  both  of  which  species  are  likewise  increasing;  and 
the  moose,  although  few  in  numbers,  are  also  on  the 
increase.  General  Young  reports  that  from  his  best  in- 
formation he  believes  there  are  25,000  wapiti  in  the  park. 
Of  the  buffalo  there  are  now  in  fenced  pastures  fifty-nine. 
These  increase  very  slowly,  the  number  of  calves  being 
small.  There  are  probably  about  twenty-five  of  the  origi- 
nal wild  buffalo  still  alive.  The  bears  are  as  numerous 
as  ever.  Last  summer  it  became  necessary  to  kill  one 
black  and  two  grizzlies  that  had  become  dangerous;  for 
some  individuals  among  the  bears  grow  insolent  under 
good  treatment.  The  mountain  lions,  which  five  years 
ago  were  so  destructive  to  the  deer  and  sheep,  have  been 
almost  exterminated.  The  tracks  show  that  one  still 
exists.  Coyotes  are  numerous  and  very  destructive  to  the 
antelope,  although  ninety-nine  were  destroyed  during  the 
past  year.  Beaver  are  abundant  and  are  increasing. 
Altogether  the  American  people  are  to  be  congratulated 
upon  the  success  of  the  Yellowstone  Park,  not  only  as  a 
national  pleasure  ground,  but  as  a  national  reserve  for 
keeping  alive  the  great  and  beautiful  wild  creatures  of 
the  wilderness. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

SMALL  COUNTRY  NEIGHBORS 

THERE  is  ample  room  for  more  complete  life  histories 
of  many  small  beasts  that  are  common  enough  around  our 
country  homes;  and  fortunately  the  need  is  now  being 
met  by  various  good  field  naturalists.  Just  last  summer, 
in  mid-July,  1907,  I  had  an  entirely  novel  experience 
with  foxes,  which  illustrates  how  bold  naturally  shy  crea- 
tures sometimes  are  after  nightfall.  Some  of  the  boys  and 
I  were  camping  for  the  night  on  the  beach  by  the  Sound, 
under  a  clay  bluff,  having  gone  thither  in  the  dory  and 
the  two  light  rowing  skiffs;  it  was  about  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  from  the  place  where  we  had  seen  the  big  red  fox 
four  or  five  years  previously.  The  fire  burned  all  night, 
and  one  or  other  of  the  party  would  now  and  then  rise 
and  stand  by  it;  nevertheless,  two  young  foxes,  evidently 
cubs  of  the  year,  came  round  the  fire,  within  plain  sight, 
half  a  dozen  times.  They  were  picking  up  scraps;  two 
or  three  times  they  came  within  ten  yards  of  the  fire. 
They  were  very  active,  scampering  up  the  bluffs;  and 
when  in  the  bushes  made  a  good  deal  of  noise,  whereas  a 
full-grown  fox  generally  moves  in  silence  even  when  in 
dead  brush. 

Small  mammals,  with  the  exception  of  squirrels,  are 
so  much  less  conspicuous  than  birds,  and  indeed  usually 
pass  their  lives  in  such  seclusion,  that  the  ordinary  ob- 

391 


392  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

server  is  hardly  aware  of  their  presence.  At  Sagamore 
Hill,  for  instance,  except  at  haying  time  I  rarely  see  the 
swarming  meadow  mice,  the  much  less  plentiful  pine 
mice,  or  the  little  mole-shrews,  alive,  unless  they  happen 
to  drop  into  a  pit  or  sunken  area  which  has  been  dug  at 
one  point  to  let  light  through  a  window  into  the  cellar. 
The  much  more  graceful  and  attractive  white-footed  mice 
and  jumping  mice  are  almost  as  rarely  seen,  though  if 
one  does  come  across  a  jumping  mouse  it  at  once  attracts 
attention  by  its  extraordinary  leaps.  The  jumping  mouse 
hibernates,  like  the  woodchuck;  and  so  does  the  chip- 
munk, though  not  always.  The  other  little  animals  just 
mentioned  are  abroad  all  winter,  the  meadow  mice  under 
the  snow,  the  white-footed  mice,  and  often  the  shrews, 
above  the  snow.  The  tell-tale  snow,  showing  all  the 
tracks,  betrays  the  hitherto  unsuspected  existence  of  many 
little  creatures;  and  the  commonest  marks  upon  it  are 
those  of  the  rabbit  and  especially  of  the  white-footed 
mouse.  The  shrew  walks  or  trots  and  makes  alternate 
footsteps  in  the  snow.  White-foot,  on  the  contrary,  always 
jumps,  whether  going  slow  or  fast,  and  his  hind  feet  leave 
their  prints  side  by  side,  often  with  the  mark  where  the 
tail  has  dragged.  I  think  white-foot  is  the  most  plenti- 
ful of  all  our  furred  wild  creatures,  taken  as  a  whole. 
He  climbs  trees  well;  I  have  found  his  nest  in  an  old 
vireo's  nest;  but  more  often  under  stumps  or  boards.  The 
meadow  mice  often  live  in  the  marshes,  and  are  entirely 
at  home  in  the  water. 

The  shrew-mouse  which  I  most  often  find  is  a  short- 
tailed,  rather  thickset  little  creature,  not  wholly  unlike 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS        393 

his  cousin  the  shrew-mole,  and  just  as  greedy  and  fero- 
cious. When  a  boy  I  captured  one  of  these  mole-shrews 
and  found  to  my  astonishment  that  he  was  a  bloodthirsty 
and  formidable  little  beast  of  prey.  He  speedily  killed 
and  ate  a  partially  grown  white-footed  mouse  which  I 
put  in  the  same  cage  with  him.  (I  think  a  full-grown 
mouse  of  this  kind  would  be  an  overmatch  for  a  shrew.) 
I  then  put  a  small  snake  in  with  him.  The  shrew  was 
very  active  but  seemed  nearly  blind,  and  as  he  ran  to  and 
fro  he  never  seemed  to  be  aware  of  the  presence  of  any- 
thing living  until  he  was  close  to  it,  when  he  would  in- 
stantly spring  on  it  like  a  tiger.  On  this  occasion  he 
attacked  the  little  snake  with  great  ferocity,  and  after 
an  animated  struggle  in  which  the  snake  whipped  and 
rolled  all  around  the  cage,  throwing  the  shrew  to  and 
fro  a  dozen  times,  the  latter  killed  and  ate  the  snake 
in  triumph.  Larger  snakes  frequently  eat  shrews,  by 
the  way. 

Once  last  summer,  while  several  of  us  were  playing 
on  the  tennis  ground,  a  mole-shrew  suddenly  came  out 
on  the  court.  I  first  saw  him  near  one  of  the  side  lines, 
and  ran  after  him;  I  picked  him  up  in  my  naked  hand, 
whereupon  he  bit  me,  and  I  then  took  him  in  my  hand- 
kerchief. After  we  had  all  looked  at  him  I  put  him 
down,  and  he  scuttled  off  among  the  grass  and  went  down 
a  little  hole.  We  resumed  our  game,  but  after  a  few 
minutes  the  shrew  reappeared,  and  this  time  crossed  the 
tennis  court  near  the  net,  while  we  gathered  about  him. 
He  was  an  absurd  little  creature  and  his  motion  in  run- 
ning was  precisely  like  that  of  one  of  those  mechanical 


394  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

toys  in  the  shape  of  mice  or  little  bears  which  are  wound 
up  and  run  around  on  wheels.  When  we  put  our  rackets 
before  him  he  uttered  little,  shrill,  long-continued  squeals 
of  irritation.  We  let  him  go  off  in  the  grass,  and  this 
time  he  did  not  reappear  for  the  day;  but  next  afternoon 
he  repeated  the  feat. 

My  boys  have  at  intervals  displayed  a  liking  for  natu- 
ral history,  and  one  of  them  during  some  years  took  to 
trapping  small  mammals,  discovering  species  that  I  had 
no  idea  existed  in  certain  places;  near  Washington,  but 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Potomac,  he  trapped  several  of 
those  very  dainty  little  creatures,  the  harvest  mice.1  One 
of  my  other  boys — the  special  friend  of  Josiah  the  badger 
— discovered  a  flying-squirrel's  nest,  in  connection  with 
which  a  rather  curious  incident  occurred.  The  little 
boy  had  climbed  a  tree  which  is  hollow  at  the  top ;  and 
in  this  hollow  he  discovered  a  flying-squirrel  mother  with 
six  young  ones.  She  seemed  so  tame  and  friendly  that  the 
little  boy  for  a  moment  hardly  realized  that  she  was  a 
wild  thing,  and  called  down  that  he  had  "  found  a  guinea 
pig  up  the  tree."  Finally,  the  mother  made  up  her  mind 
to  remove  her  family.  She  took  each  one  in  turn  in  her 
mouth  and  flew  or  sailed  down  from  the  top  of  the  tree 
to  the  foot  of  another  tree  near  by;  ran  up  this,  holding 
the  little  squirrel  in  her  mouth;  and  again  sailed  down 
to  the  foot  of  another  tree  some  distance  off.  Here  she 
deposited  her  young  one  on  the  grass,  and  then,  reversing 

1  A  visit  of  this  same  small  boy,  when  eleven  years  old,  to  John  Burroughs, 
is  described  by  the  latter  in  "  Far  and  Near,"  in  the  chapter  called  "  Babes  in 
the  Woods." 


AUDREY  TAKES  THE    BARS 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1907,  by  Clinedinst 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS        395 

the  process,  climbed  and  sailed  back  to  the  tree  where  the 
nest  was;  then  she  took  out  another  young  one  and  re- 
turned with  it,  in  exactly  the  same  fashion  as  with  the 
first.  She  repeated  this  until  all  six  of  the  young  ones 
were  laid  on  the  bank,  side  by  side  in  a  row,  all  with  their 
heads  the  same  way.  Finding  that  she  was  not  molested 
she  ultimately  took  all  six  of  the  little  fellows  back  to 
her  nest,  where  she  reared  her  brood  undisturbed. 

Flying  squirrels  become  very  gentle  and  attractive 
little  pets  if  taken  into  the  house.  I  cannot  say  as  much 
for  gray  squirrels.  Once  when  a  small  boy  I  climbed  up 
to  a  large  nest  of  dry  leaves  in  the  fork  of  a  big  chestnut 
tree,  and  from  it  picked  out  three  very  young  squirrels. 
One  died,  but  the  other  two  I  succeeded  in  rearing  on  a 
milk  diet,  which  at  first  I  was  obliged  to  administer  with 
a  syringe.  They  grew  up  absolutely  tame  and  would 
climb  all  over  the  various  members  of  the  household ;  but 
as  they  grew  older  they  grew  cross.  If  we  children  did 
something  they  did  not  like  they  would  not  only  scold  us 
vigorously,  but,  if  they  thought  the  provocation  war- 
ranted it,  would  bite  severely;  and  we  finally  exiled  them 
to  the  woods.  Gray  squirrels,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  rob  nests 
just  as  red  squirrels  do.  At  Sagamore  Hill  I  have  more 
than  once  been  attracted  by  the  alarm  notes  of  various 
birds,  and  on  investigation  have  found  the  winged  wood- 
land people  in  great  agitation  over  a  gray  squirrel's  as- 
sault on  the  eggs  or  young  of  a  thrush  or  vireo;  and  once 
one  of  these  good-looking  marauders  came  up  the  hill  to 
harry  a  robin's  nest  near  the  house.  Many  years  ago  I 
had  an  extraordinary  experience  with  a  gray  squirrel. 


396  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

I  was  in  the  edge  of  some  woods,  and,  seeing  a  squirrel,  I 
stood  motionless.  The  squirrel  came  to  me  and  actually 
climbed  up  me;  I  made  no  movement  until  it  began  to 
nibble  at  my  elbow,  biting  through  my  flannel  shirt. 
When  I  moved,  it  of  course  jumped  off,  but  it  did  not 
seem  much  frightened  and  lingered  for  some  minutes  in 
view,  about  thirty  yards  away.  I  have  never  understood 
the  incident. 

Among  the  small  mammals  at  Sagamore  Hill  the 
chipmunks  are  the  most  familiar  and  the  most  in  evi- 
dence; for  they  readily  become  tame  and  confiding.  For 
three  or  four  years  a  chipmunk — I  suppose  the  same  chip- 
munk— has  lived  near  the  tennis  court;  and  it  has  devel- 
oped the  rather  puzzling  custom  of  sometimes  scamper- 
ing across  the  court  while  we  are  in  the  middle  of  a  game. 
This  has  happened  two  or  three  times  every  year,  and  is 
rather  difficult  to  explain,  for  the  chipmunk  could  just 
as  well  go  round  the  court,  and  there  seems  no  possible 
reason  why  he  should  suddenly  run  out  on  it  while  the 
game  is  in  full  swing.  If  we  see  him,  we  all  stop  to 
watch  him,  and  then  he  may  himself  stop  and  look  about; 
but  we  may  not  see  him  until  just  as  he  is  finishing  a 
frantic  scurry  across,  in  imminent  danger  of  being 
stepped  on. 

The  most  attractive  and  sociable  pet  among  wild 
creatures  of  its  size  I  have  found  to  be  a  coon.  One 
which  when  I  was  a  boy  I  brought  up  from  the  time  it 
was  very  young,  was  as  playful  and  affectionate  as  any 
little  dog,  and  used  its  little  black  paws  just  as  if  they 
were  hands.  Coons,  by  the  way,  sometimes  appear  in 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       397 

political  campaigns.  Frequently  when  I  have  been  on 
the  stump  in  places  where  there  was  still  a  strong  tradi- 
tion of  the  old  Whig  party  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Henry 
Clay  and  Tippecanoe  Harrison,  I  have  reviewed  pro- 
cessions in  which  log  cabins  and  coons  were  prominent 
features.  The  log  cabins  were  usually  miniature  rep- 
resentations, mounted  on  wheels,  but  the  coons  were  gen- 
uine. Each  was  usually  carried  by  some  enthusiast,  who 
might  lead  it  by  a  chain  and  collar,  but  more  frequently 
placed  it  upon  a  platform  at  the  end  of  a  pole,  chained 
up  short.  Most  naturally  the  coon  protested  violently 
against  the  proceedings;  his  only  satisfaction  being  the 
certainty  that  every  now  and  then  some  other  parader 
would  stumble  near  enough  to  be  bitten.  At  one  place 
an  admirer  suddenly  presented  me  with  one  of  these  coons 
and  was  then  swept  on  in  the  crowd;  leaving  me  gingerly 
holding  by  the  end  of  a  chain  an  exceedingly  active  and 
short-tempered  little  beast,  which  I  had  not  the  slightest 
idea  how  to  dispose  of.  On  two  other  occasions,  by  the 
way,  while  off  on  campaign  trips  I  was  presented  with 
bears.  These  I  firmly  refused  to  receive.  One  of  them 
was  brought  to  a  platform  by  an  old  mountain  hunter 
who,  I  am  afraid,  really  had  his  feelings  hurt  by  the 
refusal.  The  other  bear  made  his  appearance  at  Port- 
land, Ore.,  and,  of  all  places,  was  chained  on  top  of  a 
wooden  platform  just  aft  the  smokestack  of  an  engine, 
the  engine  being  festooned  with  American  flags.  He 
belonged  to  the  fireman,  who  had  brought  him  as  a 
special  gift;  I  being  an  honorary  member  of  the  Brother- 
hood of  Locomotive  Firemen.  His  owner  explained  that 


398  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

normally  he  was  friendly;  but  the  surroundings  had  cur- 
dled his  temper. 

Usually  birds  are  very  regular  in  their  habits,  so  that 
not  only  the  same  species  but  the  same  individuals  breed 
in  the  same  places  year  after  year.  In  spite  of  their  wings 
they  are  almost  as  local  as  mammals  and  the  same  pair 
will  usually  keep  to  the  same  immediate  neighborhood, 
where  they  can  always  be  looked  for  in  their  season. 
There  are  wooded  or  brush-grown  swampy  places  not  far 
from  the  White  House  where  in  the  spring  or  summer  I 
can  count  with  certainty  upon  seeing  wrens,  chats,  and 
the  ground-loving  Kentucky  warbler,  an  attractive  little 
bird,  which,  by  the  way,  itself  looks  much  like  a  miniature 
chat.  There  are  other  places,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Rock  Creek,  where  I  can  be  almost  certain  of  finding 
the  blue-gray  gnatcatcher,  which  ranks  just  next  to  the 
humming-bird  itself  in  exquisite  daintiness  and  delicacy. 
The  few  pairs  of  mocking-birds  around  Washington  have 
just  as  sharply  defined  haunts. 

Nevertheless  it  is  never  possible  to  tell  when  one  may 
run  across  a  rare  bird;  and  even  birds  that  are  not  rare 
now  and  then  show  marked  individual  idiosyncrasy  in 
turning  up,  or  even  breeding,  in  unexpected  places.  At 
Sagamore  Hill,  for  instance,  I  never  knew  a  purple  finch 
to  breed  until  the  summer  of  1906.  Then  two  pairs 
nested  with  us,  one  right  by  the  house  and  the  other  near 
the  stable.  My  attention  was  drawn  to  them  by  the  bold, 
cheerful  singing  of  the  males,  who  were  spurred  to  rivalry 
by  one  another's  voices.  In  September  of  the  same  year, 
while  sitting  in  a  rocking-chair  on  the  broad  veranda 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS        399 

looking  out  over  the  Sound,  I  heard  the  unmistakable 
"  ank-ank  "  of  nuthatches  from  a  young  elm  at  one  cor- 
ner of  the  house.  I  strolled  over,  expecting  to  find  the 
white-bellied  nuthatch,  which  is  rather  common  on  Long 
Island.  But  instead  there  were  a  couple  of  red-bellied 
nuthatches,  birds  familiar  to  me  in  the  Northern  woods, 
but  which  I  had  never  before  seen  at  Sagamore  Hill. 
They  were  tame  and  fearless,  running  swiftly  up  and 
down  the  tree-trunk  and  around  the  limbs  while  I  stood 
and  looked  at  them  not  ten  feet  away.  The  two  younger 
boys  ran  out  to  see  them;  and  then  we  hunted  up  their 
picture  in  Wilson.  I  find,  by  the  way,  that  Audubon's 
and  Wilson's  are  still  the  most  satisfactory  large  orni- 
thologies, at  least  for  nature  lovers  who  are  not  special- 
ists; of  course  any  attempt  at  serious  study  of  our  birds 
means  recourse  to  the  numerous  and  excellent  books  and 
pamphlets  by  recent  observers.  Bendire's  large  work 
gives  admirable  biographies  of  all  the  birds  it  treats  of; 
unfortunately  it  was  never  finished. 

In  May,  1907,  two  pairs  of  robins  built  their  substan- 
tial nests,  and  raised  their  broods,  on  the  piazza  at  Saga- 
more Hill;  one  over  the  transom  of  the  north  hall  door 
and  one  over  the  transom  of  the  south  hall  door.  An- 
other pair  built  their  nest  and  raised  their  brood  on  a 
rafter  in  the  half-finished  new  barn,  quite  undisturbed  by 
the  racket  of  the  carpenters  who  were  finishing  it.  A  pair 
of  scarlet  tanagers  built  near  the  tennis  ground;  the  male 
kept  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  all  the  time,  flaming 
among  the  branches,  and  singing  steadily  until  the  last 
part  of  July.  To  my  ears  the  song  of  the  tanager  is  like 


4oo  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

a  louder,  more  brilliant,  less  leisurely  rendering  of  the 
red-eyed  vireo's  song;  but  with  the  characteristic  "  chip- 
churr  "  every  now  and  then  interspersed.  Only  one  pair 
of  purple  finches  returned  to  us  last  summer;  and  for 
the  first  time  in  many  years  no  Baltimore  orioles  built 
in  the  elm  by  the  corner  of  the  house;  they  began  their 
nest  but  for  some  reason  left  it  unfinished.  The  red- 
winged  blackbirds,  however,  were  more  plentiful  than 
for  years  previously,  and  two  pairs  made  their  nests  near 
the  old  barn,  where  the  grass  stood  lush  and  tall ;  this  was 
the  first  time  they  had  ever  built  nearer  than  the  wood- 
pile pond,  and  I  believe  it  was  owing  to  the  season  being 
so  cold  and  wet.  It  was  perhaps  due  to  the  same  cause 
that  so  many  black-throated  green  warblers  spent  June 
and  July  in  the  woods  on  our  place;  they  must  have  been 
breeding,  though  I  only  noticed  the  males.  Each  kept  to 
his  own  special  tract  of  woodland,  among  the  tops  of  the 
tall  trees,  seeming  to  prefer  the  locusts,  and  throughout 
June,  and  far  into  July,  each  sang  all  day  long — a  drawl- 
ing, cadenced  little  warble  of  five  or  six  notes,  the  first 
two  being  the  most  noticeable  near  by,  though,  rather 
curiously,  the  next  two  were  the  notes  that  had  most  car- 
rying power.  The  song  was  usually  uttered  at  intervals 
of  a  few  seconds ;  sometimes  while  the  singer  was  perched 
motionless,  sometimes  as  he  flitted  and  crawled  actively 
among  the  branches.  With  the  resident  of  one  particular 
grove  I  became  well  acquainted,  as  I  was  chopping  a 
path  through  the  grove.  Every  day  when  I  reached  the 
grove,  I  found  the  little  warbler  singing  away,  and  at 
least  half  the  time  in  one  particular  locust  tree.  He  paid 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       401 

not  the  slightest  attention  to  my  chopping;  whereas  a  pair 
of  downy  woodpeckers  and  a  pair  of  great-crested  fly- 
catchers, both  of  them  evidently  nesting  near  by,  were 
much  put  out  by  my  presence.  While  listening  to  my 
little  black-throated  friend,  I  could  also  continually  hear 
the  songs  of  his  cousins,  the  prairie  warbler,  the  redstart, 
the  black-and-white  creeper  and  the  Maryland  yellow- 
throat;  not  to  speak  of  oven-birds,  towhees,  thrashers, 
vireos,  and  the  beautiful  golden-voiced  wood  thrushes. 

The  black-throated  green  warblers  have  seemingly 
become  regular  summer  residents  of  Long  Island,  for 
after  discovering  them  on  my  place  I  found  that  two  or 
three  bird-loving  neighbors  were  already  familiar  with 
them;  and  I  heard  them  on  several  different  occasions  as 
I  rode  through  the  country  roundabout.  I  already  knew 
as  summer  residents  in  my  neighborhood  the  following 
representatives  of  the  warbler  family:  the  oven-bird,  chat, 
black-and-white  creeper,  Maryland  yellow-throat,  sum- 
mer yellow-bird,  prairie  warbler,  pine  warbler,  blue- 
winged  warbler,  golden-winged  warbler  (very  rare) ,  blue 
yellow-backed  warbler  and  redstart. 

The  black-throated  green  as  a  breeder  and  summer 
resident  is  a  newcomer  who  has  extended  his  range  south- 
ward. But  this  same  summer  I  found  one  warbler,  the 
presence  of  which,  if  more  than  accidental,  means  that  a 
southern  form  is  extending  its  range  northward.  This 
was  the  Dominican  or  yellow-throated  warbler.  Two  of 
my  bird-loving  neighbors  are  Mrs.  E.  H.  Swan,  Jr.,  and 
Miss  Alice  Weekes.  On  July  4th  Mrs.  Swan  told  me 
that  a  new  warbler,  the  yellow-throated,  was  living  near 


402  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

their  house,  and  that  she  and  her  husband  had  seen  it 
there  on  several  occasions.  I  was  rather  skeptical,  and 
told  her  I  thought  that  it  must  be  a  Maryland  yellow- 
throat.  Mrs.  Swan  meekly  acquiesced  in  the  theory  that 
she  might  have  been  mistaken;  but  two  or  three  days 
afterward  she  sent  me  word  that  she  and  Miss  Weekes 
had  seen  the  bird  again,  had  examined  it  thoroughly 
through  their  glasses,  and  were  sure  that  it  was  a  yellow- 
throated  warbler.  Accordingly  on  the  morning  of  the  8th 
I  walked  down  and  met  them  both  near  Mrs.  Swan's 
house,  about  a  mile  from  Sagamore  Hill.  We  did  not 
have  to  wait  long  before  we  heard  an  unmistakably  new 
warbler's  song,  loud,  ringing,  sharply  accented,  just  as 
the  yellow-throat's  song  is  described  in  Chapman's  book. 
At  first  the  little  bird  kept  high  in  the  tops  of  the  pines, 
but  after  a  while  he  came  to  the  lower  branches  and  we 
were  able  to  see  him  distinctly.  Only  a  glance  was  needed 
to  show  that  my  two  friends  were  quite  right  in  their 
identification  and  that  the  bird  was  undoubtedly  the  Do- 
minican or  yellow-throated  warbler.  Its  bill  was  as  long 
as  that  of  a  black-and-white  creeper,  giving  the  head  a 
totally  different  look  from  that  of  any  of  its  brethren, 
the  other  true  wood-warblers;  and  the  olive-gray  back, 
yellow  throat  and  breast,  streaked  sides,  white  belly,  black 
cheek  and  forehead,  and  white  line  above  the  eye  and 
spot  on  the  side  of  the  neck,  could  all  be  plainly  made 
out.  The  bird  kept  continually  uttering  its  loud,  sharply 
modulated,  and  attractive  warble.  It  never  left  the  pines, 
and  though  continually  on  the  move,  it  yet  moved  with 
a  certain  deliberation  like  a  pine  warbler,  and  not  with 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       403 

the  fussy  agility  of  most  of  its  kinsfolk.  Occasionally  it 
would  catch  some  insect  on  the  wing,  but  most  of  the  time 
kept  hopping  about  among  the  needle-clad  clusters  of  the 
pine  twigs,  or  moving  along  the  larger  branches,  stop- 
ping from  time  to  time  to  sing.  Now  and  then  it  would 
sit  still  on  one  twig  for  several  minutes,  singing  at  short 
intervals  and  preening  its  feathers. 

After  looking  at  it  for  nearly  an  hour  we  had  to  solve 
the  rather  difficult  ethical  question  as  to  whether  we 
ought  to  kill  it  or  not.  In  these  cases  it  is  always  hard 
to  draw  the  line  between  heartlessness  and  sentimentality. 
In  our  own  minds  we  were  sure  of  our  identification, 
and  did  not  feel  that  we  could  be  mistaken,  but  we  were 
none  of  us  professed  ornithologists,  and  as  far  as  I  knew 
the  bird  was  really  rare  thus  far  north ;  so  that  it  seemed 
best  to  shoot  him,  which  was  accordingly  done.  I  was 
influenced  in  this  decision,  in  the  first  place  because  war- 
blers are  so  small  that  it  is  difficult  for  any  observer  to 
be  absolutely  certain  as  to  their  identification ;  and  in  the 
next  place  by  the  fact  that  the  breeding  season  was  un- 
doubtedly over,  and  that  this  was  an  adult  male,  so  that 
no  harm  came  to  the  species.  I  very  strongly  feel  that 
there  should  be  no  "  collecting  "  of  rare  and  beautiful 
species  when  this  is  not  imperatively  demanded.  Mock- 
ing-birds, for  instance,  are  very  beautiful  birds,  well 
known  and  unmistakable;  and  there  is  not  the  slightest 
excuse  for  "  collecting  "  their  nests  and  eggs  or  shooting 
specimens  of  them,  no  matter  where  they  may  be  found. 
So,  there  is  no  excuse  for  shooting  scarlet  tanagers,  sum- 
mer redbirds,  cardinals,  nor  of  course  any  of  the  com- 


404  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

mon,  well-known  friends  of  the  lawn,  the  garden  and 
the  farm  land;  and  with  most  birds  nowadays  observa- 
tions on  their  habits  are  of  far  more  value  than  their 
skins  can  possibly  be.  But  there  must  be  some  shooting, 
especially  of  obscure  and  little-known  birds,  or  we  would 
never  be  able  to  identify  them  at  all ;  while  most  laymen 
are  not  sufficiently  close  observers  to  render  it  possible 
to  trust  their  identification  of  rare  species. 

In  one  apple  tree  in  the  orchard  we  find  a  flicker's 
nest  every  year;  the  young  make  a  queer,  hissing,  bub- 
bling sound,  a  little  like  the  boiling  of  a  pot.  This  same 
year  one  of  the  young  ones  fell  out;  I  popped  it  back  into 
the  hole,  whereupon  its  brothers  and  sisters  "  boiled  "  for 
several  minutes  like  the  cauldron  of  a  small  and  friendly 
witch.  John  Burroughs,  and  a  Long  Island  neighbor, 
John  Lewis  Childs,  drove  over  to  see  me,  in  this  same 
June  of  1907,  and  I  was  able  to  show  them  the  various 
birds  of  most  interest — the  purple  finch,  the  black- 
throated  green  warbler,  the  redwings  in  their  unexpected 
nesting  place  by  the  old  barn,  and  the  orchard  orioles  and 
yellow-billed  cuckoos  in  the  garden.  The  orchard  orioles 
this  year  took  much  interest  in  the  haying,  gleaning  in 
the  cut  grass  for  grasshoppers.  The  barn  swallows  that 
nest  in  the  stable  raised  second  broods,  which  did  not 
leave  the  nest  until  the  end  of  July.  When  the  barn 
swallows  gather  in  their  great  flocks  just  prior  to  the 
southward  migration,  the  gathering  sometimes  takes  place 
beside  a  house,  and  then  the  swallows  seem  to  get  so 
excited  and  bewildered  that  they  often  fly  into  the  house. 
When  I  was  a  small  boy  I  took  a  keen,  although  not  a 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       405 

very  intelligent,  interest  in  natural  history,  and  solemnly 
recorded  whatever  I  thought  to  be  notable.  When  I  was 
nine  years  old  we  were  passing  the  summer  near  Tarry- 
town,  on  the  Hudson.  My  diary  for  September  4,  1868, 
runs  as  follows :  "  Cold  and  rainy.  I  was  called  in  from 
breakfast  to  a  room.  When  I  went  in  there  what  was 
my  surprise  to  see  on  walls,  curtains  and  floor  about  forty 
swallows.  All  the  morning  long  in  every  room  of  the 
house  (even  the  kitchen)  were  swallows.  They  were 
flying  south.  Several  hundred  were  outside  and  about 
seventy-five  in  the  house.  I  caught  most  of  them  (and 
put  them  out  of  the  windows) .  The  others  got  out  them- 
selves. One  flew  on  my  pants  where  he  stayed  until  I 
took  him  off." 

At  the  White  House  we  are  apt  to  stroll  around  the 
grounds  for  a  few  minutes  after  breakfast;  and  during  the 
migrations,  especially  in  spring,  I  often  take  a  pair  of 
field  glasses  so  as  to  examine  any  bird  as  to  the  identity 
of  which  I  am  doubtful.  From  the  end  of  April  the 
warblers  pass  in  troops — myrtle,  magnolia,  chestnut- 
sided,  bay-breasted,  blackburnian,  black-throated  blue, 
blue-winged,  Canadian,  and  many  others,  with  at  the  very 
end  of  the  season  the  black-poll — all  of  them  exquisite 
little  birds,  but  not  conspicuous  as  a  rule,  except  perhaps 
the  blackburnian,  whose  brilliant  orange  throat  and 
breast  flame  when  they  catch  the  sunlight  as  he  flits  among 
the  trees.  The  males  in  their  dress  of  courtship  are  easily 
recognized  by  any  one  who  has  Chapman's  book  on  the 
warblers.  On  May  4,  1906,  I  saw  a  Cape  May  warbler, 
the  first  I  had  ever  seen.  It  was  in  a  small  pine.  It  was 


4o6  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

fearless,  allowing  a  close  approach,  and  as  it  was  a  male 
in  high  plumage,  it  was  unmistakable. 

In  1907,  after  a  very  hot  week  in  early  March,  we 
had  an  exceedingly  late  and  cold  spring.  The  first  bird 
I  heard  sing  in  the  White  House  grounds  was  a  white- 
throated  sparrow  on  March  ist,  a  song  sparrow  speedily 
following.  The  white-throats  stayed  with  us  until  the 
middle  of  May,  overlapping  the  arrival  of  the  indigo 
buntings;  but  during  the  last  week  in  April  and  first  week 
in  May  their  singing  was  drowned  by  the  music  of  the 
purple  finches,  which  I  never  before  saw  in  such  num- 
bers around  the  White  House.  When  we  sat  by  the  south 
fountain,  under  an  apple  tree  then  blossoming,  sometimes 
three  or  four  purple  finches  would  be  singing  in  the  fra- 
grant bloom  overhead.  In  June  a  pair  of  wood  thrushes 
and  a  pair  of  black-and-white  creepers  made  their  homes 
in  the  White  House  grounds,  in  addition  to  our  ordinary 
homemakers,  the  flickers,  redheads,  robins,  catbirds,  song 
sparrows,  chippies,  summer  yellow-birds,  grackles,  and, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  crows.  A  handsome  sapsucker  spent  a 
week  with  us.  In  the  same  year  five  night  herons  spent 
January  and  February  in  a  swampy  tract  by  the  Poto- 
mac, half  a  mile  or  so  from  the  White  House. 

At  Mount  Vernon  there  are  of  course  more  birds  than 
there  are  around  the  White  House,  for  it  is  in  the  country. 
At  present  but  one  mocking-bird  sings  around  the  house 
itself,  and  in  the  gardens  and  the  woods  of  the  immedi- 
ate neighborhood.  Phoebe  birds  nest  at  the  heads  of  the 
columns  under  the  front  portico;  and  a  pair — or  rather, 
doubtless,  a  succession  of  pairs — has  nested  in  Washing- 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       407 

ton's  tomb  itself,  for  the  twenty  years  since  I  have  known 
it.  The  cardinals,  beautiful  in  plumage,  and  with  clear 
ringing  voices,  are  characteristic  of  the  place.  I  am 
glad  to  say  that  the  woods  still  hold  many  gray — not  red 
—foxes;  the  descendants  of  those  which  Washington  so 
perseveringly  hunted. 

At  Oyster  Bay  on  a  desolate  winter  afternoon  many 
years  ago  I  shot  an  Ipswich  sparrow  on  a  strip  of  ice- 
rimmed  beach,  where  the  long  coarse  grass  waved  in 
front  of  a  growth  of  blue  berries,  beach  plums  and 
stunted  pines.  I  think  it  was  the  same  winter  that  we 
were  visited  not  only  by  flocks  of  cross-bills,  pine  linnets, 
red-polls  and  pine  grossbeaks,  but  by  a  number  of  snowy 
owls,  which  flitted  to  and  fro  in  ghost-like  fashion  across 
the  wintry  landscape  and  showed  themselves  far  more 
diurnal  in  their  habits  than  our  native  owls.  One  fall 
about  the  same  time  a  pair  of  duck-hawks  appeared  off 
the  bay.  It  was  early,  before  many  ducks  had  come,  and 
they  caused  havoc  among  the  night  herons,  which  were 
then  very  numerous  in  the  marshes  around  Lloyd's  Neck, 
there  being  a  big  heronry  in  the  woods  near  by.  Once 
I  saw  a  duck-hawk  come  around  the  bend  of  the  shore, 
and  dart  into  a  loose  gang  of  young  night  herons,  still  in 
the  brown  plumage,  which  had  jumped  from  the  marsh 
at  my  approach.  The  pirate  struck  down  three  herons  in 
succession  and  sailed  swiftly  on  without  so  much  as  look- 
ing back  at  his  victims.1  The  herons,  which  are  usually 

l  Dr.  Lambert  last  fall,  on  a  hunting  trip  in  Northern  Quebec,  found  a  gyrfal- 
con  on  an  island  in  a  lake  which  had  just  killed  a  great  blue  heron;  the  heron's 
feathers  were  scattered  all  over  the  lake.  Lambert  also  shot  a  great  horned  owl 
in  the  dusk  one  evening,  and  found  that  it  had  a  half-eaten  duck  in  its  claws. 


4o8  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

rather  dull  birds,  showed  every  sign  of  terror  whenever 
the  duck-hawk  appeared  in  the  distance;  whereas,  they 
paid  no  heed  to  the  fish-hawks  as  they  sailed  overhead. 
I  found  the  carcass  of  a  black-headed  or  Bonaparte's 
gull  which  had  probably  been  killed  by  one  of  these 
duck-hawks;  these  gulls  appear  in  the  early  fall,  before 
their  bigger  brothers,  the  herring  gulls,  have  come  for 
their  winter  stay.  The  spotted  sand-pipers  often  build 
far  away  from  water;  while  riding,  early  in  July,  1907, 
near  Cold  Spring,  my  horse  almost  stepped  on  a  little 
fellow  that  could  only  just  have  left  the  nest.  It  was  in 
a  dry  road  between  upland  fields;  the  parents  were  near 
by,  and  betrayed  much  agitation.  The  little  fish-crows 
are  not  rare  around  Washington,  though  not  so  common 
as  the  ordinary  crows;  once  I  shot  one  at  Oyster  Bay. 
They  are  not  so  wary  as  their  larger  kinsfolk,  but  are 
quite  as  inveterate  destroyers  of  the  eggs  and  nestlings 
of  more  attractive  birds.  The  soaring  turkey  buzzards, 
so  beautiful  on  the  wing  and  so  loathsome  near  by,  are 
seen  everywhere  around  the  Capital. 

Bird  songs  are  often  puzzling,  and  it  is  nearly  impos- 
sible to  write  them  down  so  that  any  one  but  the  writer 
will  recognize  them.  Moreover,  as  we  ascribe  to  them 
qualities,  such  as  plaintiveness  or  gladness,  which  really 
exist  in  our  own  minds  and  not  in  the  songs  themselves, 
two  different  observers,  equally  accurate,  may  ascribe 
widely  different  qualities  to  the  same  song.  To  me,  for 
instance,  the  bush  sparrow's  song  is  more  attractive  than 
the  vesper  sparrow's;  but  I  think  most  of  my  friends  feel 
just  the  reverse  way  about  the  two  songs.  To  most  of 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       409 

us  the  bobolink's  song  bubbles  over  with  rollicking  mer- 
riment, with  the  glad  joy  of  mere  living;  whereas  the 
thrushes,  the  meadow  lark,  the  white-throated  sparrow, 
all  have  a  haunting  strain  of  sadness  or  plaintiveness  in 
their  melody;  but  I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  there  is 
the  slightest  difference  of  this  kind  in  the  singers.  Most 
of  the  songs  of  the  common  birds  I  recognize  fairly  well; 
but  even  with  these  birds  there  will  now  and  then  be  a 
call,  or  a  few  bars,  which  I  do  not  recognize;  and  if  I 
hear  a  bird  but  seldom,  I  find  much  difficulty  in  recall- 
ing its  song,  unless  it  is  very  well  marked  indeed.  Last 
spring  I  for  a  long  time  utterly  failed  to  recognize  the 
song  of  a  water  thrush  by  Rock  Creek;  and  later  in  the 
season  I  on  one  occasion  failed  to  make  out  the  flight  song 
of  an  oven-bird  until  in  the  middle  of  it  the  singer  sud- 
denly threw  in  two  or  three  of  the  characteristic  "  teacher, 
teacher  "  notes.  Even  in  neighborhoods  with  which  I  am 
familiar  I  continually  hear  songs  and  calls  which  I  can- 
not place. 

In  Albemarle  County,  Virginia,  we  have  a  little  place 
called  Pine  Knot,  where  we  sometimes  go,  taking  some 
or  all  of  the  children,  for  a  three  or  four  days'  outing. 
It  is  a  mile  from  the  big  stock  farm,  Plain  Dealing, 
belonging  to  an  old  friend,  Mr.  Joseph  Wilmer.  The 
trees  and  flowers  are  like  those  of  Washington,  but  their 
general  close  resemblance  to  those  of  Long  Island  is  set  off 
by  certain  exceptions.  There  are  osage  orange  hedges, 
and  in  spring  many  of  the  roads  are  bordered  with  bands 
of  the  brilliant  yellow  blossoms  of  the  flowering  broom, 
introduced  by  Jefferson.  There  are  great  willow  oaks 


410  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

here  and  there  in  the  woods  or  pastures,  and  occasional 
groves  of  noble  tulip  trees  in  the  many  stretches  of  forest; 
these  tulip  trees  growing  to  a  much  larger  size  than  on 
Long  Island.  As  at  Washington,  among  the  most  plen- 
tiful flowers  are  the  demure  little  Quaker  Ladies,  which 
are  not  found  at  Sagamore  Hill — where  we  also  miss 
such  northern  forms  as  the  wake  robin  and  the  other 
trilliums,  which  used  to  be  among  the  characteristic 
marks  of  spring-time  at  Albany.  At  Pine  Knot  the  red 
bug,  dogwood  and  laurel  are  plentiful;  though  in  the 
case  of  the  last  two  no  more  so  than  at  Sagamore  Hill. 
The  azalea — its  Knickerbocker  name  in  New  York  was 
pinkster — grows  and  flowers  far  more  luxuriantly  than 
on  Long  Island.  The  moccasin  flower,  the  china-blue 
Virginia  cowslip  with  its  pale  pink  buds,  the  blood-red 
Indian  pink,  the  painted  columbine  and  many,  many 
other  flowers  somewhat  less  showy  carpet  the  woods. 

The  birds  are,  of  course,  for  the  most  part  the  same  as 
on  Long  Island,  but  with  some  differences.  These  differ- 
ences are,  in  part,  due  to  the  more  southern  locality;  but 
in  part  I  cannot  explain  them,  for  birds  will  often  be 
absent  from  one  place  seemingly  without  any  real  reason. 
Thus  around  us  in  Albemarle  County  song  sparrows  are 
certainly  rare  and  I  have  not  seen  savanna  sparrows  at 
all ;  but  the  other  common  sparrows,  such  as  the  chippy, 
field  sparrow,  vesper  sparrow,  and  grasshopper  sparrow 
abound;  and  in  an  open  field  where  bind-weed  morning 
glories  and  evening  primroses  grew  among  the  broom 
sedge,  I  found  some  small  grass-dwelling  sparrows,  which 
with  the  exercise  of  some  little  patience  I  was  able  to 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       411 

study  at  close  quarters  with  the  glasses ;  as  I  had  no  gun 
I  could  not  be  positive  about  their  identification,  though 
I  was  inclined  to  believe  that  they  were  Henslow's  spar- 
rows. Of  birds  of  brilliant  color  there  are  six  species — 
the  cardinal,  the  summer  redbird  and  the  scarlet  tanager, 
in  red,  and  the  bluebird,  indigo  bunting,  and  blue  gross- 
beak,  in  blue.  I  saw  but  one  pair  of  blue  grossbeaks; 
but  the  little  indigo  buntings  abound,  and  bluebirds  are 
exceedingly  common,  breeding  in  numbers.  It  has  al- 
ways been  a  puzzle  to  me  why  they  do  not  breed  around 
us  at  Sagamore  Hill,  where  I  only  see  them  during  the 
migrations.  Neither  the  rosy  summer  redbirds  nor  the 
cardinals  are  quite  as  brilliant  as  the  scarlet  tanagers, 
which  fairly  burn  like  live  flames;  but  the  tanager  is 
much  less  common  than  either  of  the  others  in  Albemarle 
County,  and  it  is  much  less  common  than  it  is  at  Saga- 
more Hill.  Among  the  singers  the  wood  thrush  is  not 
common,  but  the  meadow  lark  abounds.  The  yellow- 
breasted  chat  is  everywhere  and  in  the  spring  its  cluck- 
ing, whistling  and  calling  seem  never  to  stop  for  a  minute. 
The  white-eyed  vireo  is  found  in  the  same  thick  under- 
growth as  the  chat  and  among  the  smaller  birds  it  is  one 
of  those  most  in  evidence  to  the  ear.  In  one  or  two  places 
I  came  across  parties  of  the  long-tailed  Bewick's  wren, 
as  familiar  as  the  house  wren  but  with  a  very  different 
song.  There  are  gentle  mourning  doves ;  and  black-billed 
cuckoos  seem  more  common  than  the  yellow-bills.  The 
mocking-birds  are,  as  always,  most  interesting.  I  was 
much  amused  to  see  one  of  them  following  two  crows; 
when  they  lit  in  a  plowed  field  the  mocking-bird  paraded 


412  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

alongside  of  them  six  feet  off,  and  then  fluttered  around 
to  the  attack.  The  crows,  however,  were  evidently  less 
bothered  by  it  than  they  would  have  been  by  a  kingbird. 
At  Plain  Dealing  many  birds  nest  within  a  stone's  throw 
of  the  rambling  attractive  house,  with  its  numerous  out- 
buildings, old  garden,  orchard,  and  venerable  locusts 
and  catalpas.  Among  them  are  Baltimore  and  orchard 
orioles,  purple  grackles,  flickers  and  red-headed  wood- 
peckers, bluebirds,  robins,  kingbirds  and  indigo  buntings. 
One  observation  which  I  made  was  of  real  interest.  On 
May  1 8,  1907,  I  saw  a  small  party  of  a  dozen  or  so  of 
passenger  pigeons,  birds  I  had  not  seen  for  a  quarter  of 
a  century  and  never  expected  to  see  again.  I  saw  them 
two  or  three  times  flying  hither  and  thither  with  great 
rapidity,  and  once  they  perched  in  a  tall  dead  pine  on  the 
edge  of  an  old  field.  They  were  unmistakable;  yet  the 
sight  was  so  unexpected  that  I  almost  doubted  my  eyes, 
and  I  welcomed  a  bit  of  corroborative  evidence  coming 
from  Dick,  the  colored  foreman  at  Plain  Dealing.  Dick 
is  a  frequent  companion  of  mine  in  rambles  around  the 
country,  and  he  is  an  unusually  close  and  accurate  ob- 
server of  birds,  and  of  wild  things  generally.  Dick  had 
mentioned  to  me  having  seen  some  "  wild  carrier  pig- 
eons," as  he  called  them;  and,  thinking  over  this  remark 
of  his,  after  I  had  returned  to  Washington,  I  began  to 
wonder  whether  he  too  might  not  have  seen  passenger 
pigeons.  Accordingly  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Wilmer,  asking 
him  to  question  Dick  and  find  out  what  the  "  carrier 
pigeons  "  looked  like.  His  answering  letter  runs  in  part 
as  follows : 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       413 

"  On  May  I2th  last  Dick  saw  a  flock  of  about  thirty  wild 
pigeons,  followed  at  a  short  distance  by  about  half  as  many, 
flying  in  a  circle  very  rapidly,  between  the  Plain  Dealing 
house  and  the  woods,  where  they  disappeared.  They  had 
pointed  tails  and  resembled  somewhat  large  doves — the  breast 
and  sides  rather  a  brownish  red.  He  had  seen  them  before, 
but  many  years  ago.  I  think  it  is  unquestionably  the  passenger 
pigeon — Ectopistes  mlgratorlus — described  on  p.  25  of  the  5th 
volume  of  Audubon.  I  remember  the  pigeon  roosts  as  he  de- 
scribes them,  on  a  smaller  scale,  but  large  flocks  have  not  been 
seen  in  this  part  of  Virginia  for  many  years." 

I  fear,  by  the  way,  that  the  true  prairie  chicken,  one 
of  the  most  characteristic  American  game  birds,  will  soon 
follow  the  passenger  pigeon.  My  two  elder  sons  have 
now  and  then  made  trips  for  prairie  chickens  and  ducks 
to  the  Dakotas.  Last  summer,  1907,  the  second  boy  re- 
turned from  such  a  trip — which  he  had  ended  by  a  suc- 
cessful deer  hunt  in  Wisconsin — with  the  melancholy  in- 
formation that  the  diminution  in  the  ranks  of  the  prairie 
fowl  in  the  Dakotas  was  very  evident. 

The  house  at  Pine  Knot  consists  of  one  long  room, 
with  a  broad  piazza,  below,  and  three  small  bedrooms 
above.  It  is  made  of  wood,  with  big  outside  chimneys 
at  each  end.  Wood  rats  and  white-footed  mice  visit  it; 
once  a  weasel  came  in  after  them;  now  a  flying  squirrel 
has  made  his  home  among  the  rafters.  On  one  side  the 
pines  and  on  the  other  side  the  oaks  come  up  to  the  walls ; 
in  front  the  broom  sedge  grows  almost  to  the  piazza  and 
above  the  line  of  its  waving  plumes  we  look  across  the 
beautiful  rolling  Virginia  farm  country  to  the  foot-hills 


4H  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

of  the  Blue  Ridge.  At  night  whippoorwills  call  inces- 
santly around  us.  In  the  late  spring  or  early  summer  we 
usually  take  breakfast  and  dinner  on  the  veranda  listen- 
ing to  mocking-bird,  cardinal,  and  Carolina  wren,  as  well 
as  to  many  more  common  singers.  In  the  winter  the  lit- 
tle house  can  only  be  kept  warm  by  roaring  fires  in  the 
great  open  fireplaces,  for  there  is  no  plaster  on  the  walls, 
nothing  but  the  bare  wood.  Then  the  table  is  set  near 
the  blazing  logs  at  one  end  of  the  long  room  which  makes 
up  the  lower  part  of  the  house,  and  at  the  other  end  the 
colored  cook — Jim  Crack  by  name — prepares  the  deli- 
cious Virginia  dinner;  while  around  him  cluster  the 
little  darkies,  who  go  on  errands,  bring  in  wood,  or  fetch 
water  from  the  spring,  to  put  in  the  bucket  which  stands 
below  where  the  gourd  hangs  on  the  wall.  Outside  the 
wind  moans  or  the  still  cold  bites  if  the  night  is  quiet; 
but  inside  there  is  warmth  and  light  and  cheer. 

There  are  plenty  of  quail  and  rabbits  in  the  fields 
and  woods  near  by,  so  we  live  partly  on  what  our  guns 
bring  in;  and  there  are  also  wild  turkeys.  I  spent  the 
first  three  days  of  November,  1906,  in  a  finally  success- 
ful effort  to  kill  a  wild  turkey.  Each  morning  I  left 
the  house  between  three  and  five  o'clock,  under  a  cold 
brilliant  moon.  The  frost  was  heavy;  and  my  horse 
shuffled  over  the  frozen  ruts  as  I  rode  after  Dick.  I 
was  on  the  turkey  grounds  before  the  faintest  streak  of 
dawn  had  appeared  in  the  east;  and  I  worked  as  long 
as  daylight  lasted.  It  was  interesting  and  attractive  in 
spite  of  the  cold.  In  the  night  we  heard  the  quavering 
screech  owls;  and  occasionally  the  hooting  of  one  of 


ROSWELL   BEHAVES 

From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1907,  by  Clinedinst 


A   I/it 

«  _•  '  '   ''  *  i    r  , 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       415 

their  bigger  brothers.  At  dawn  we  listened  to  the  lusty 
hammering  of  the  big  logcocks,  or  to  the  curious  cough- 
ing or  croaking  sound  of  a  hawk  before  it  left  its  roost. 
Now  and  then  loose  flocks  of  small  birds  straggled  past 
us  as  we  sat  in  the  blind,  or  rested  to  eat  our  lunch; 
chickadees,  tufted  tits,  golden-crested  kinglets,  creepers, 
cardinals,  various  sparrows  and  small  woodpeckers. 
Once  we  saw  a  shrike  pounce  on  a  field  mouse  by  a 
haystack ;  once  we  came  on  a  ruffed  grouse  sitting  motion- 
less in  the  road. 

The  last  day  I  had  with  me  Jim  Bishop,  a  man  who 
had  hunted  turkeys  by  profession,  a  hard-working  farmer, 
whose  ancestors  have  for  generations  been  farmers  and 
woodmen ;  an  excellent  hunter,  tireless,  resourceful,  with 
an  eye  that  nothing  escaped ;  just  the  kind  of  a  man  one 
likes  to  regard  as  typical  of  what  is  best  in  American  life. 
Until  this  day,  and  indeed  until  the  very  end  of  this  day, 
chance  did  not  favor  us.  We  tried  to  get  up  to  the  turkeys 
on  the  roost  before  daybreak;  but  they  roosted  in  pines 
and,  night  though  it  was,  they  were  evidently  on  the  look- 
out, for  they  always  saw  us  long  before  we  could  make 
them  out,  and  then  we  could  hear  them  fly  out  of  the  tree- 
tops.  Turkeys  are  quite  as  wary  as  deer,  and  we  never 
got  a  sight  of  them  while  we  were  walking  through  the 
woods;  but  two  or  three  times  we  flushed  gangs,  and  my 
companion  then  at  once  built  a  little  blind  of  pine  boughs 
in  which  we  sat  while  he  tried  to  call  the  scattered  birds 
up  to  us  by  imitating,  with  marvellous  fidelity,  their 
yelping.  Twice  a  turkey  started  toward  us,  but  on  each 
occasion  the  old  hen  began  calling  some  distance  off  and 


4i 6  AN   AMERICAN    HUNTER 

all  the  scattered  birds  at  once  went  toward  her.  At  other 
times  I  would  slip  around  to  one  side  of  a  wood  while 
my  companion  walked  through  it,  but  either  there  were 
no  turkeys  or  they  went  out  somewhere  far  away  from  me. 

On  the  last  day  I  was  out  thirteen  hours.  Finally, 
late  in  the  afternoon,  Jim  Bishop  marked  a  turkey  into 
a  point  of  pines  which  stretched  from  a  line  of  wooded 
hills  down  into  a  narrow  open  valley  on  the  other  side 
of  which  again  rose  wooded  hills.  I  ran  down  to  the 
end  of  the  point  and  stood  behind  a  small  oak,  while 
Bishop  and  Dick  walked  down  through  the  trees  to  drive 
the  turkey  toward  me.  This  time  everything  went  well; 
the  turkey  came  out  of  the  cover  not  too  far  off  and 
sprang  into  the  air,  heading  across  the  valley  and  offer- 
ing me  a  side  shot  at  forty  yards  as  he  sailed  by.  It  was 
just  the  distance  for  the  close-shooting  ten-bore  duck 
gun  I  carried;  and  at  the  report  down  came  the  turkey 
in  a  heap,  not  so  much  as  a  leg  or  wing  moving.  It  was 
an  easy  shot.  But  we  had  hunted  hard  for  three  days; 
and  the  turkey  is  the  king  of  American  game  birds ;  and, 
besides,  I  knew  he  would  be  very  good  eating  indeed 
when  we  brought  him  home ;  so  I  was  as  pleased  as  pos- 
sible when  Dick  lifted  the  fine  young  gobbler,  his  bronze 
plumage  iridescent  in  the  light  of  the  westering  sun. 

Formerly  we  could  ride  across  country  in  any  direc- 
tion around  Washington  and  almost  as  soon  as  we  left 
the  beautiful,  tree-shaded  streets  of  the  city  we  were 
in  the  real  country.  But  as  Washington  grows,  it  natu- 
rally— and  to  me  most  regrettably — becomes  less  and 
less  like  its  former,  glorified-village,  self;  and  wire  fenc- 


SMALL    COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       417 

ing  has  destroyed  our  old  cross-country  rides.  Fortu- 
nately there  are  now  many  delightful  bridle  trails  in 
Rock  Creek  Park;  and  we  have  fixed  up  a  number  of 
good  jumps  at  suitable  places — a  stone  wall,  a  water 
jump,  a  bank  with  a  ditch,  two  or  three  posts-and-rails, 
about  four  feet  high,  and  some  stiff  brush  hurdles,  one 
of  five  feet  seven  inches.  The  last,  which  is  the  only  for- 
midable jump  was  put  up  to  please  two  sporting  members 
of  the  administration,  Bacon  and  Meyer.  Both  of  them 
school  their  horses  over  it;  and  my  two  elder  boys,  and 
Fitzhugh  Lee,  my  cavalry  aide,  also  school  my  horses 
over  it.  On  one  of  my  horses,  Roswell,  I  have  gone  over 
it  myself;  and  as  I  weigh  two  hundred  pounds  without 
my  saddle  I  think  that  the  jump,  with  such  a  weight,  in 
cold  blood,  should  be  credited  to  Roswell  for  righteous- 
ness. Roswell  is  a  bay  gelding;  Audrey  a  black  mare; 
they  are  Virginia  horses.  In  the  spring  of  1907  I  had 
photographs  of  them  taken  going  over  the  various  jumps. 
Roswell  is  a  fine  jumper,  and  usually  goes  at  his  jumps 
in  a  spirit  of  matter-of-fact  enjoyment.  But  he  now  and 
then  shows  queer  kinks  in  his  temper.  On  one  of  these 
occasions  he  began  by  wishing  to  rush  his  jumps,  and 
by  trying  to  go  over  the  wings  instead  of  the  jumps  them- 
selves. He  fought  hard  for  his  head ;  and  as  it  happened 
that  the  best  picture  we  got  of  him  in  the  air  was  at  this 
particular  time,  it  gives  a  wrong  idea  of  his  ordinary 
behavior,  and  also,  I  sincerely  trust,  a  wrong  idea  of  my 
hands.  Generally  he  takes  his  jumps  like  a  gentleman. 
Many  of  the  men  with  whom  I  hunted  or  with  whom 
I  was  brought  in  close  contact  when  I  lived  on  my  ranch, 


4i 8  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

and  still  more  of  the  men  who  were  with  me  in  the  Rough 
Riders,  have  shared  in  some  way  or  other  in  my  later 
political  life.  Phil  Stewart  was  one  of  the  Presidential 
Electors  who  in  1904  gave  me  Colorado's  vote;  Merri- 
field  filled  the  same  position  in  Montana  and  is  now  Mar- 
shal of  that  State.  Cecil  Lyon  and  Sloan  Simpson,  of 
Texas,  were  delegates  for  me  at  the  National  Convention 
which  nominated  me  in  1904.  Sewell  is  Collector  of  Cus- 
toms in  Maine;  Sylvans  and  Joe  Ferris  are  respectively 
Register  of  the  Land  Office  and  Postmaster  in  North 
Dakota;  Dennis  Shea  with  whom  I  worked  on  the  Little 
Missouri  roundup  holds  my  commission  as  Marshal  of 
North  Dakota.  Abernathy  the  wolf  hunter  is  my  Mar- 
shal in  Oklahoma.  John  Willis  declined  to  take  any 
place ;  when  he  was  last  my  guest  at  the  White  House  he 
told  me,  I  am  happy  to  say,  that  he  does  better  with  his 
ranch  than  he  could  have  done  with  any  office.  Johnny 
Goff  is  a  forest  ranger  near  the  Yellowstone  Park.  Seth 
Bullock  is  Marshal  of  South  Dakota;  he  too  is  an  old 
friend  of  my  ranch  days  and  was  sheriff  in  the  Black 
Hills  when  I  was  deputy  sheriff  due  north  of  him  in 
Billings  County,  in  the  then  Territory  of  Dakota. 
Among  the  people  that  we  both  arrested,  by  the  way,  was 
a  young  man  named  "  Calamity  Joe,"  a  very  well-mean- 
ing fellow  but  a.  wild  boy  who  had  gone  astray,  as  wild 
boys  often  used  to  go  astray  on  the  frontier,  through  bad 
companionship.  To  my  great  amusement  his  uncle 
turned  up  as  United  States  Senator  some  fifteen  years 
later,  and  was  one  of  my  staunch  allies.  Of  the  men  of 
the  regiment  Lieutenant  Colonel  Brodie  I  made  Gov- 


ROSWELL   FIGHTS    FOR   HIS   HEAD 
From  a  photograph,  copyright,  1907,  by  Clinedinst 


SMALL   COUNTRY   NEIGHBORS       419 

ernor  of  Arizona,  Captain  Frantz,  Governor  of  Okla- 
homa, and  Captain  Curry  Governor  of  New  Mexico. 
Ben  Daniels  I  appointed  Marshal  of  Arizona;  Colbert, 
the  Chickasaw,  Marshal  in  the  Indian  Territory.  Llew- 
ellyn is  District  Attorney  in  New  Mexico.  Jenkins  is 
Collector  of  Internal  Revenue  in  South  Carolina.  Fred 
Herrig,  who  was  with  me  on  the  Little  Missouri,  where 
we  hunted  the  black-tail  and  the  big-horn  together,  and 
who  later  served  under  me  at  Santiago,  is  a  forest  ranger 
in  Montana;  and  many  other  men  of  my  old  regiment 
have  taken  up  with  unexpected  interest  occupations  as 
diverse  as  those  of  postmaster,  of  revenue  agent,  of  land 
and  forest  officers  of  various  kinds.  Joe  Lee  is  Minis- 
ter to  Ecuador;  John  Mcllhenny  is  Civil  Service  Com- 
missioner; Craig  Wadsworth  is  Secretary  of  Legation  at 
the  Court  of  St.  James;  Mason  Mitchell  is  Consul  in 
China,  having  already  been  Consul  at  Mozambique, 
where  he  spent  his  holidays  in  hunting  the  biggest  of 
the  world's  big  game. 

Appointments  to  public  office  must  of  course  be  made 
primarily  because  of  the  presumable  fitness  of  the  man 
for  the  position.  But  even  the  most  rigid  moralist  ought 
to  pardon  the  occasional  inclusion  of  other  considerations. 
I  am  glad  that  I  have  been  able  to  put  in  office  certain 
out-door  men  who  were  typical  leaders  in  the  old  life  of 
the  frontier,  the  daring  adventurous  life  of  warfare 
against  wild  man  and  wild  nature  which  has  now  so 
nearly  passed  away.  Bat  Masterson,  formerly  of  Dodge 
City  and  the  Texas  cattle  trail,  the  most  famous  of  the  old- 
time  marshals,  the  iron-nerved  gun-fighters  of  the  bor- 


42o  AN    AMERICAN    HUNTER 

der,  is  now  a  deputy  marshal  in  New  York,  under  District 
Attorney  Stimson — himself  a  big  game  hunter,  by  the 
way.  Pat  Garret,  who  slew  Billy  the  Kid,  I  made  Col- 
lector of  Customs  at  El  Paso;  and  other  scarred  gun- 
fighters  of  the  vanished  frontier,  with  to  their  credit  deeds 
of  prowess  as  great  as  those  of  either  Masterson  or  Garret, 
now  hold  my  commissions,  on  the  Rio  Grande,  in  the 
Territories,  or  here  and  there  in  the  States  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  the  Great  Plains. 


FORM  NO.  DD6 


4 


64568 


UNIVERSITY  QF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


